Prima

Thumbs Up

My documentation of life has been lax lately. I haven’t felt the writing bug or even the ability to remember much.

We’ve had weekend trips and baby goats and all kinds of excitement. Donna Threeto got glasses (see below). We had a flood. Then another flood. I got to see Washington DC. I’ll share some good flood photos in another post. Maybe. Sometime.

Yay! Baby goats!

Anyway. Work life has escalated. In a good way but a busy way as well. I have been traveling a little more and anytime I am out of town life seems to make trouble for me back home.

This week, trouble was in the form of a broken thumb. Who else but Prima, our graceful low calcium princess. She was struck with a dodgeball and immediately had swelling and bruising in her thumb. I assumed that she had stubbed it. Her teacher texted me a picture and I suggested the dad approach of rubbing a little dirt on it and proceeding with life. After all, who the hell breaks a bone in dodgeball? Maybe an ankle but to snap a thumb at the growth plate?

Made you look.

Supermom sent me the picture after a fun trip to the doctor’s office at 7:00 at night. She took all four children because all of our babysitting options were out of town. In fact, I was at another hospital in another town visiting one of the grandparents. I got a series of texts that let me know the bone was broken and that she is going to a specialist the next day.

The next day I got a text that I should cancel my schedule the next day because the doctor was going to place her under anesthesia and re-break the thumb to set it correctly. Fun. And they wanted her to check in at the hospital at 6:00 am. More fun.

We did have a fun pre-op experience though.

It is important to remember that Prima is our worry-wart child. She once cried for an hour because poison berries existed and she was afraid that one day she may not be able to stop her hand from making her mouth eat them. True story. She also decided she was afraid of bugs and would barely leave the living room for a week or so. She has done a lot of self-therapy and is much improved but still has a panic from time to time.

So… our pensive princess is sitting in the prep-room and the nurse hands her a gown. She is given the instructions to remove all of her clothes and put on the gown.

Prima asks, “Can I leave my panties on?”

The nurse responds flatly, “The doctor doesn’t like to leave anything that can catch on fire…”

Her eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. I can only imagine the images that she was putting together in her head. Supermom saw the problem immediately and assured her that she was not at risk of burning to death while getting her thumb fixed. Prima was allowed to wear her undergarment without further question.

She was nervous until the IV of Versed convinced her that nothing really matters and life is a warm pool of happy.

Procedure went good. Recovery was slow. I think the medicine was rough on her. She passed out after trying to get up too quickly. Eventually she got to head home after a little Sprite and some vomiting.

In about five weeks everything should be good to go. Just in time for swimming and summer.

If you have been injured in a game of dodgeball this post is for you. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Truth Vomit

The past weekend has been an overwhelming sadness because of a missing toddler. We have contributed to the search efforts and checked Facebook every fifteen minutes for hope of some sliver of good news. None yet, but more on that in another post. This story is about a birthday party I took Prima to on Sunday.

It was a holiday weekend so the kids were scattered at different Grandparent’s houses while they enjoyed being anywhere but at home. Sometimes I think they would rather live in the mailbox out front than in their own bedroom. Anyway, about Sunday morning we pulled the awesome parent move #352: Realizing that you have a birthday party to attend later that same day. Prima was at Mamaw’s and reminded her of the party about the same time that Supermom and I found the invitation. Nevermind the fact that Prima had never mentioned her before, she was determined to go to this party. With all the lingering sadness we decided a break would be good. Mamaw came through with a present which made the decision even easier. The present was a gift that was never given to anyone but it was a cool gift so she let us use it for the party. Awesome!

A little side note about Prima; She is a hugger and doesn’t understand strangers or personal space. We get to the party at the Pizza Buffet establishment and they are still decorating the room. The invitations said 3-6 so I knew there would be some serious festivities to get six year old girls through three hours of party. I overheard someone mention that the karaoke machine would “be here at four”. Double awesome. Frozen themed karaoke at the back of a pizza buffet restaurant. I’m all in.

Prima walks up to greet her friend and hands her the present.

She then proceeds to say, “Here is your present. We didn’t buy it. It is an old present from my Mamaws.”

…SILENCE…

I could have fucking died. I couldn’t get low enough into my seat to hide my shame and my laughter would have given me away anyway. Luckily the little girl is ADD too so her only response was, “I call my Grandma Mamaw too!” “Yay lets go play!”

Bullet dodged. I pulled out the iPhone and sat in the corner while fifteen people I don’t know stared at me and never attempted conversation. Then the karaoke got there. Right out of the gate we get Eddie Rabbit and I Love A Rainy Night. Those kids were confused at best. Then the lady mentioned Frozen and the heat was on. Let It Go. Do You Want to Build A Snowman. Jingle Bells.

Then when the birthday girl got tired of singing and ran to the arcade, her mother or aunt picked up the mic and sang a duet with someone about a man cheating between them and who he really loves. I thought that fit the six year old theme perfectly. Apparently this inspired the birthday girl to return and she sang Taylor Swift – Wildest Dreams, which she proceeded to describe some dude as handsome as hell. Another thing that made this six year old party interesting. I told Prima we needed to leave and she went on a hugging spree that I haven’t witnessed since my Aunt Lorie unleashed the Christmas hugs of 2003. Everyone in the family tree of the birthday girl got a goodbye hug from Prima. She left no stone unturned but several other children were mildly uncomfortable.

Just when I thought my parenting pride for the day had been hit hard enough. Jane has a conversation with her GJ about spending the night.

“I want to spend the night.”

“You don’t have any night clothes”

“I can wear these clothes to sleep in.”

“Then you will wear them twice.”

“That’s nothing, sometimes I wear my clothes three days at a time.”

Prima’s eyes light up with a potential solution. “I know what we can do! We will just switch clothes tomorrow so they will be clean to us.”

Yessir I am doing a bangup job of this parenting thing. If your kids make you look good to other people, this post is for you. Enjoy that because some of us aren’t so lucky. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy To The Rescue

Annual Bahumbug Convention

It seems like forever since I wrote something on here that I that was worth hitting publish. I guess it will be a few more weeks. Today I am just dumping an update on the ups and downs around our household.

The other night kicked off the week when in the course of one hour I discovered rabbit poop in my pocket, chased a naked two year old swinging a pirate sword, and was bitten by a wallaby. Just a normal start to a week I suppose. That was before Toby took a turn for the worse.

I have mentioned before that a wallaby desires nothing more than to die. They are almost indistinguishable from a gothic teen. More Emo than Goth actually because they aren’t angry just dark and suicidal. They even have black fingernails. Early this week Toby started to show signs of not feeling well. He stopped eating and slowly lost energy to the point where he didn’t want to stand up. Then he stopped talking his bottles and even refused to hump a stuffed animal. Truly dire straits.

First trip to a vet revealed cloudy lungs indicating pneumonia. Oral antibiotics. Next day he wouldn’t even lift his head. We searched several avenues for a cure and opted to go back to the vet. We tried an injectable antibiotic and were feeding him with a syringe. He improved slightly over the next day but still didn’t try to get up very much. He ate on a sweet potato for an evening but now he won’t even touch that. His breathing has improved but not his will to live.

Today he went back to the vet for another round of antibiotics and fluids. All I can say at this point is that he isn’t dead. We are on a mission of hourly hydration and force feeding. If he wants to die he will have to man-up and do it because I have other plans. Sometimes the cure for a hard set depression is persistent TLC. Stay tuned…

In other news, we attended the Christmas lunch and caroling for the oldest two children. I love seeing them in their element outside of the home. They have their own friends and routines and seeing their independence is a beautiful thing. A nice random conversation:

(I walked into the bathroom and a small boy in my oldest child’s class was leaving. He looked at me like he recognized me.)
Boy: Hey you.
Me: Hi.
Boy: My friend told me that your kid robbed the school.
Me: …Um…No?
Boy: Ok.

Then he left, apparently sufficiently satisfied that I didn’t raise a criminal. I am still curious if someone robbed our school and I didn’t know about it. Life is so random sometimes. Oh well, onward!

Reasons I felt like a loser this week include:
1) Forgetting to remind the family that there was a lunch/singing event.
2) Waiting until yesterday to actually purchase a Christmas tree. We had the joy of picking through the last eight trees that Lowes had but at least they were marked down 25%. Probably related to the amount of leaves that had fallen off already. No soaping the tree because our AIDS ridden wallaby might eat it and die.
3) We washed clothes for each coming day, the night before. This entire week. I vote for moving to a nudist colony. It would only be a change for myself and Supermom.
4) I am fluctuating between hoping Toby lives to hoping Toby dies. I hate the indecision. After a week of critical care he should have the decency to recover already. Or die. I don’t want that though. I am willing him to live. Somehow they become like children. Part of the family. He will spend thirty minutes staring at his reflection and I will wonder, “What is he thinking?” only to realize that he probably isn’t thinking. He is a stupid selfish, dying jerk. And he smells like maple syrup from peeing on himself but in thirty minutes I will feed him again and try to talk him into surviving. Is anger the first stage of grief? I think so. It is what you do…
5) I stayed up too late every night this week and twice our Elf on the Shelf wasn’t able to move to a new place. The kids love that thing.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. Prima, our resident ballerina, fell face first into the bleacher at school while sitting on it and she bit a hole in her lip, knocked out a bottom tooth, and had to go to the doctor’s office to check it all out. The PE teacher was really concerned and assured us that she was sitting and talking with her friends when she absentmindedly leaned to the wrong side. I believe him because I watched her do the same thing off the couch about a year ago and she broke her wrist. Only to Prima is watching TV a dangerous sport.

So to recap… some sort of doctor’s office, bodily injury, and impending emotional loss every day this week.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

-Underdaddy

ps. 88% of my survey respondents rarely or never shower with a significant other. 12% of you are awesome. The other 88% either stink or need to work on your relationships. Just saying.

Fun Control Advocate

We have an Xbox that we rarely play.Mostly because I am lazy and watching them play video games hurts me on a deep level. I love Guitar Hero but my kids have the coordination of a stoner playing dodge ball. Notes are coming off the screen towards them and all they can say is, “Daddy this is going too fast. What do I do? It’s going to hit me!”

“You just did the tutorial. You know what to do.”

“This music is confusing me.”

“The point of the game is that you are playing the music.” I am worried for their grasp on reality.

“Is there another game?” She is just hitting buttons and looking at the ceiling at this point.

“Sure.”

So we find more batteries and I dug out Big Game Hunter II which should be titled Panic Massacre because they give you two guns with unlimited bullets and you just shoot everything that moves. This should be good.

The oldest child (who loves animals and wants to be a vet) is cheering for blasting the life out of everything. “You got that one in the face dad!”

“This is a game. Like that water gun game at the fair.” I don’t want her to get a blood lust for shooting things.

“I know it isn’t real.”

“Okay good.”

Prima is covering her face and peeking through her fingers because the wolves are aggressive and trying to eat the main character the whole time. It is a first person game so they jump at the screen.

Don Threeto, who I thought would be the most gangsta about this, was standing beside me watching the geese explode and saying, “They are just babies daddy! You are shooting babies!” I felt guilty about that until I was done and she asked to try her hand at mass murder. I did what any good father would do and I gave the four year old the gun shaped controller.

The gangster came out to play. She grabbed that shotgun like a pro and her eyes had a twinkle that rivals Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. She cocked it once and was ready for action. Tomb Raider style. Turok the Mountain Goat Hunter. I punched the green button and it was game on. She holds the gun up above her head and turns it sideways and starts pulling the trigger and reloading in rapid fire. Tony Montana would be impressed at her gusto and rage. I think she got her shooting skills from her Mamaw but that is another story about squirrel hunting. Another day. Today is about Threeto. There are explosions and war cries. Five minutes later there are beads of sweat on her brow. There are more dead animals than the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. She drops the weapon on the floor like an exhausted rapper drops the mic after an encore. She has enough breath left to utter, “Juice daddy. I need juice.”

Who wouldn’t need hydration after a sociopath rampage. I know I do.

Visibly shaken, I turn off the Xbox and we read Ferdinand, a book about a peaceful bull. I can’t be sure but I think Threeto was pointing her finger like a gun and making “pew pew pew” sounds each time I turned the page. I may have created a monster. Maybe she will score high on the ASVAB and get recruited for a high level position in the military like Katherine Heigl in that terrorist show.

So if you tried to play video games and gave your child an unquenchable blood lust, this post is for you. If you will examine the cover photo you will notice my other fails of the day; a) she slept in her outfit from yesterday because we got home late and she was already out, b) She is four going on five and still insists on a pacifier. We hide them and take them but she has secret stashes around the house.

You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

The Buttery Hole

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

That is the profound phrase that was supposed to be represented on a flexible rubber drinking cup. It is a bar souvenir and has been changed to say, “Beauty is in the eye of the Beerholder.”

My second child is exploring the world of reading and as I walk into the living room I find her exploring this cup.

“What is this last word daddy?”

“Beerholder. It is supposed to say beholder and it is a turn of phrase that….”

“Can I try to read it?”

I thought that is what we were doing but I say, “Sure, tell me what it says.”

She stares for a minute like she is genuinely confused at what these letters are saying. I just told her the last word and I know she knows the others. Somehow, something in her brain overrides all previous knowledge and she reads proudly, “Butter is in the eye of the Butthole.”

“Wow. Not even close.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What does it say?”

“Nothing about sticks of fat or buttholes. Please don’t read anything out loud when we go to Walmart.”

“Okay daddy!”

“I love you!”

“I love you too!”

And that is the last we have mentioned of the buttery butthole incident. Prima moved on to an interpretive dance while watching Teen Titans, Go!. I don’t think Jane has stopped laughing yet. Days later and she manages to stop for a gasp of air and a quick recap, “Butter in the eye of the butthole! Ah hahahaha.” This is one of the reasons we don’t leave the house much.

If you can cross out TV news anchor or proofreader as careers your children might enjoy, this post is for you. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.