The Meds

It sat in the bottom of the cup: a pink, pearlescent puddle. It looked innocuous enough but I knew better. Meds. For The Boy.

Crap.

I dipped a finger in and tasted it; I always want to know what the reaction was going to be from him. Hmmm...cherry flavored. Not ba...SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS HOLY (AND LESS THAN HOLY TOO SINCE I DON'T LIKE TO BE ALL EXCLUSIONARY LIKE THAT.)

Where did that aftertaste come from? I was tempted to go eat some grass in the back yard to get rid of the flavor.

The Wife walked into the kitchen. "What's with 'the face'."

I pointed to the offending, tiny, pool of doom that lurked in the bottom of the rocks glass. She walked over and dipped a finger in. I thought briefly about warning her but the thought, "why should I be alone in this?"

"That's not ba...oh. my. god. That is horrible. Why didn't you get it flavored?"

"I did. I just didn't realize that when I asked for cherry flavor it came with a chaser of putrefied skunk rectum."

The Boy walked in. We stopped staring at the pink cesspool. He knew what was up when he saw the rocks glass though. "I don't want any medicine."

Zoom! Gone. Out of the room.

It was time for the pleading to begin.

I chilled it in the fridge while we offered all sorts of helpful hints on how a popsicle would numb his taste buds and how it'll make him feel better (it was only a minor sinus thing, thanks for caring) and how the doctor said he should take it and how if he didn't take it, God would come down from heaven, destroy his bodily form utterly and completely, and cast his soul adrift in the winds of Limbo until such time as he decided to take the damn medicine and then and only then would he be made corporeal again (okay, I only thought that last one, but I still think it would have worked.)

None of it worked. He's always been stubborn like that. Finally, I had to pull a daddy trick. I got his nemesis, the dosing syringe. I silently held it up and he had flashbacks to the times I held him tight and forced medicine down his throat with it. They're not pretty memories for either of us, but, in the end, you have to go with what works.

He crumbled. He took the medicine with an iced tea chaser. We did the appropriate praising and wrote a few extra verses to the Hallelujah Chorus in honor of his achievement...because that's what little boys require.

The rest of the doses since have gone off without a hitch. Someday we're hoping to achieve drama-free nirvana. Until then though, I've got the dosing syringe on standby.

 

Technorati Tags: look kid - it's gonna happen one way or the other

Sunday Randomness

The usual stuff that I didn't feel like making into whole posts...

The Boy: "Do I get any extra in my allowance for spending time with the family instead of playing with my friends?"
(Does a kick in the pants count as extra?)

Me: "Why are you wearing my sunglasses buddy?"
The Boy: "So the spitting cobras don't get me."
Me: "Righto, carry on."

The Boy: "Wanna know my favorite song?"
Me: "Sure, what is it?"
The Boy: "The Polka."
(I'm going to have to have a talk with his Polish grandfather. That's just not right.)

Fortunately we know the Polka thing isn't true. We have the following as proof:



A little help on some lyrics is in order, but he's got the ham going. I trimmed a bit out in the middle where he discovered he could make the CD skip when he whacked the table.

Also an award from Tara at From Dawn Till Rusk. Sadly, she is wrapping up her blog to move on to another project and I can wish her nothing but the best (even if she does spell favorite strangely...there's no 'u' in there...even spellcheck marks it wrong, so there.) It is well worth perusing her archives if you get a chance.


I rated as 'Coolest Dad' in her book and that's good enough for me.

The Ballad of Little Dog

I have to start this post with a disclaimer. I really do love animals. We have two cats and a dog and I've had pets all my life. There was just this one dog though...

My wife is on the board at the local SPCA so we stop over there on occasion. One time when we were there, they were naming some new animals they had just gotten in. There was this little dog there. Black and tan like a rottweiler pup. It was some sort of terrier though, so it was full grown. He was roughly 112,000 years old (in demon years.) They needed a name and my wife was wearing Levi jeans so I said, "Levi." They liked it and that was that or so I thought.

Levi had a hard time finding a home. Personally, I think it's because he was a mean little bastard, but The Wife thought it was because he was handicapped. He had a gimpy front leg. When you walked him it looked sort of like he had three legs and a flipper. Gimp leg would swing out and forward, plop down and repeat as he walked and made this little 'skritch' sound as his nails would drag on the pavement.

Time passed and Levi festered in the SPCA. Finally, one day, The Wife announced she was going to foster him so he didn't have to stay there. I begrudgingly said, "Okay."

He had this habit of trying to bite people in the heels. It's all he could reach, but after a few corrections, he at least stopped trying it with me. One day, someone decided they would take a chance on the miserable, little cur Levi.

When he got to his new owner, he rapidly made himself at home by unhousebreaking himself. This was made worse by the fact that she was a little older and couldn't really do a good job of retraining him. He was also one of those vile poop eating types. Yeah, because you want to see that happen in your house.

Back to the SPCA went Levi.

Enter The Wife.

TW: "We should keep him."

Me: "I don't like him. I'm sure the feeling is mutual too. I've seen him try to dial for a hitman. But he can't because of the gimpy paw."

TW: "That's mean."

I need to point out here that we had just gone through an ectopic pregnancy. It's was rough for both of us since we were told we couldn't get pregnant. At all. And then that happened. (Hey, Universe, I still owe you a big, "Fuck you!" for that one. Consider yourself served.)

Anyway, I could tell this was one of those things that would help.

Me: "Fine, but I'm calling him Mr. Hankey now due to the whole poop thing."

So home he came with us.

He would go for walks with us. We discovered we had to buy him these little booties for his paw because the top would scrape on the ground and it would get raw. I'm certain he did this only to inconvenience me though.

Time wore on and his name changed. He became 'little dog.' The Wife called him this because she used to carry him around like a 15-pound black and tan meatloaf. People would come over and remark how cute he was. They thought he was a rottie pup. Usually if they thought he was cute, I'd ask if they would like to adopt him. After about 20 or so hairy eyeballs from The Wife, I stopped.

Time ground on and little dog, nipper of heels, started peeing in the house even though he was going out regularly. Off to the vet. He was diabetic. Whoopee!

Gimpy and diabetic and mean (to everyone but The Wife and The Boy.)

The morning routine changed a little and I had to start giving him shots. Granted, it was some small satisfaction. "This is for your own good, Levi." Jab.

Time crawled through fields of razor wire and broken glass bisected by a river of burning bile.

Levi turned grey, but he was just teasing me. He clung to life like he would to my leg given the chance. Then, another joke on me. The diabetes caused blindness. It didn't much matter since The Wife carried him most places. He would just bump into things here and there. That didn't matter much either since snails would challenge him to drag out in the backyard. No harm done when he bumped into something. But for those of you keeping score:

Gimpy, diabetic, blind, mean.

Time nearly gave up. I kept resuscitating and yelling, "Finish it already."

One night, while trying to sleep, I was awoken by barking. Constant barking. I tried to reason with little dog. He was having none of it. Back to the vet. "He seems to be a bit senile," was the diagnosis. Frigging awesome. After The Wife would go to bed (she was sleeping in The Boy's room at the time and couldn't hear the barkitude we had going on) I would carry his crate down to the basement so I could sleep. I'd get up early and sneak him back up. Oh, and:

Gimpy, diabetic, blind, mean, senile.

One day I came down to find that the senility had advanced. How did I know you ask? He was covered in his own poop and urine. The Mr. Hankey joke was no longer quite so funny.

TW: "What are we going to do?"

Me: "That's funny that you chose the pronoun 'we.'

TW: "Get back here."

Me: "Fine, I'll hose him off in the yard."

TW: "It's 40 degrees out!"

Me: *shrug*

TW: "Fine, I'll take care of it."

Amen to that. This mercifully only went on for a week or two before we took him to the vet's office for one, last visit. She misses him from time to time. I don't, but there's no need to point that out to her.

It turns out here also that I was also a bit of a prophet when I named him. As proof, I present this:

Technorati Tags: little dog,all that is evil in a small bundle

Country Roads

We live in a rural area. Well, close enough that the city folk (where I'm from originally) qualify it as rural. I like it. I would never consider moving back to even a fair sized city. There are some drawbacks though.

We were coming back from a sale at the Woolrich store (it's about a 5 minute drive) and The Wife said, "Let's take that back road home.

Okay, I thought. I don't mind a leisurely drive home. There are some roads I love around here. The kind with all the little hills on them where you can hit them at just the right speed and make the boy giggle in the back seat when his tummy gets that dropping feeling.

This was not one of those roads.

Don't get me wrong, it was a country road with all the appropriate windy-ness. It was what lined the roads.

Houses. But not normal houses. Houses that strain the concept of words like dilapidated and slapdash and bedraggled. Houses that make my wife say things like, "Look, Jacob. People actually live in there."

I know, I sound a little snotty here but really. I'm not a builder or anything, but I redid the attic and have framed walls. It's not hard, it just takes time. If your entire house leans to the right, it may be an appropriate response to find some time to work on it. That tree won't hold it up forever, pal.

I don't think there's any need to have two stoves, a refrigerator, and an assortment of couches on your porch either...not to mention the abused car lot in your back yard.

As we drove, my six year-old son kept muttering, "disgusting," in the back seat as The Wife kept pointing out 'houses.' Yeah, we've at least instilled that much wisdom in him.

After a about 10 minutes (it's funny how you always hit a time warp on these roads) we cleared the last of them and I announced, "It looks like we're leaving Deliverance-ville." The joke fell flat. The Wife is a cretin when it comes to the classic. We'll let The Boy slide since A) he hasn't seen it yet and B) he may have been in a slight state of shock after seeing numbers of houses supported mainly by the surrounding shrubberies.

We did make it home safe and no one had to squeal like a pig to get us there, so that's a bonus. That and we're all just about done with Christmas shopping.

Technorati Tags: If that's considered a house,my penis should rate as a battering ram

The Blood Test

Yesterday, I had to take my son for a blood test. No worries, it's all just to make sure there's no Lyme disease crawling around his system since I had it earlier in the year and my in-laws' dog has it too. They watch him after school, so there's a chance.

Ticks rule like that. Vile little beasties.

Anyway, it was decided that I would fly this mission solo since Jacob gets all 'momma's boy' when she's around. She's a crumbler at the first sight of tears too. I happen to have a convenient heart of stone for these situations. I keep it in a little box filed under, "crappy stuff that has to be done."

The time was nearing to go pick him up and I had the requisite feeling of dread, but there was nothing to be done; the sentence had been passed.

I drove over to the in-laws to pick him up and let him know it was time for his test at the doctor's.

The Boy: "What kind of test daddy?"

Me: "Oh, you know, just one of those tests."

The Boy: "Am I getting a shot?"

Crap, this was going to be like a big game of dodge ball all the way to the doctor's.

Me: "No, not a shot." Similar concept though...still a needle involved, but they'll be taking instead of giving. I was not lying here, mind you, merely omitting.

The Boy: "How long will it take?"

Me: "Not long."

The Boy: "What kind of test is it?"

Me: "Dunno, buddy. We'll find out in a minute." Okay, I lied. Bite me.

The Boy: "Will it hurt?"

Me: "I don't think so." Hey, pain is all relative. Of course, a needle to a child might as well be a sharpened drain pipe.

...and double bite me.

We finally got there and were walking across the lot when he asked, "Am I having surgery?"

I burst out laughing. "No, no surgery."

We entered the office and I was all prepared. We had a stuffed animal du jour and I had the pocket video recorder so I could show him the movies we took for Halloween. Yeah baby, I had it covered. Dad o' the year, that's me.

We were in the lab in under five minutes and he was sitting on my lap. He was watching videos to the left. He never even looked to the right when they did the strappy thing to his arm. Things were moving along nicely.

Cool, this might just work out.

Then he looked to his right just as they were about to put the needle in.

Full. Bore. Nutty.

"I don't wanna. I want to go home. I want my mommy," over and over again. A protective mantra at 100 decibels. Then the tears came.

My little, stone heart chipped a little.  Perhaps it cracked a smidge as well. It's rough. You tell your child it's so they wont feel icky later on but it's still hard to do.

The nurses broke to their respective corners and we talked him down. After a minute or so, he realized there wasn't any escape. Especially since mommy wasn't there.

Some more tears flowed as I put his little legs between mine and crossed them so he couldn't kick and I held his flailable arm while the nurses held his other. It was over pretty quick and the nurses were great.

I said, "Let's bolt," and we were outta there. On the way to the car he said it wasn't any worse than his flu shot. I thought, "Yeah but you could have at least had the consideration to make it easier on me." Sheesh, these selfish kids nowadays.

The Boy: "You didn't tell me that was going to happen."

I thought, "Duh, I couldn't have gotten you through the doors without a team of Clydesdales pulling you if I had."

I said, "Gee, I wasn't sure what kind of test it was going to be buddy."

Liar, liar. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do though. Let's hope that's the last test for a while.

 

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