You know how after a while you begin to interpret your babies’ cries, differentiating between hungry, cranky, shitty, stuck in the toilet bowl, fresh from a leap off the top bunk, this is juice not milk wtf is wrong with you, why are you feeding me gruel when everyone else has pizza, give me your coffee/wine/whatever is in your mouth, etc?
After almost 15 years, I thought I had it down to a science.
Until today when I continued looking for a stamp while Jack whined outside, because what I was hearing was “I can’t get my bubble mower out of this tight spot” when really what he was saying was “I’m stuck on top of this old rotting log which is also a fire ant nest. if you please could you remove me from this poison nest and strip off my clothes post-haste?”
I administered a dose of Apis 200, and then because I’m one to hedge my bets, Benadryl (dye free, do I get to keep my alterna-card?) and for me, a lifetime of flogging and an afternoon of guilt ridden peeks into his bedroom to verify that he’s still breathing.
I stopped counting bites when I got to 50. On one foot.
I removed a fire ant from my nether regions. I removed several fire ants from HIS nether regions. Picture me, tearing clothes, shoes and diaper off him while sprinting across the yard.
I’m so sorryI’msosorryI’msosorry!
Picture Jack, intrigued by the red homeopathic kit, screeching when I put it away. Sucking down Benadryl because really, after 2 children who must be held down and force fed medicine, it is my turn to have one who loves the taste of artificial sweetener and pharmaceuticals. Screeching when I pass by his bottle of milk without giving it to him. Doing all kinds of normal Jack things, while a hundred little white welts develop all over his body.
There’s a special sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I am forced to recall the suffering of my children. I’m still overcome with a wave of nausea when I remember the process by which the ortho straightened the broken bone in Hannah’s arm, for instance, or when I picture the nurses turning out the lights so they could illuminate her collapsing veins with a flashlight in order to place an IV in her month-old infant body.
It’s worse when I do something horrible, like when I sprayed menthol on Avery’s open wound.
I’m not sure which event will win the lifetime MOTFY award.