The Fish Pond

Shooting for the Bulk Discount, AKA A Straight Tequila Night

It could have been worse, I suppose.

I was in the basement, moving laundry through the machines. Nemo had come down with me, as he is prone to doing, but he lost interest relatively quickly and disappeared, I assumed to go back upstairs, and I continued with what I was doing, which at that point was sorting dirty stuff into piles. I heard Little Man start to scream, which is not unusual in this house, so I paid no mind at first. His screams became more urgent, though, and the other kids started screaming, and the words "Little Man is bleeding!" penetrated my fog of irritation. I hollered that I was in the basement and told Little Man to come down.

He rushed into the laundry room, still screaming at the top of his lungs, blood just pouring out of his hand. I grabbed a dirty towel and wrapped it around his finger as he wailed that it hurt and I demanded "What happened? What the hell happened?" as I couldn't really figure out what was so dangerous and blood-inducing about watching Avatar. "Nemo did it! Nemo cut me with scissors! Mom! I need a bandage!" I could hear the girls upstairs screaming, the timer for the food in the oven beeping over their cries, and the thump-thump-thump of Nemo's footsteps as he ran around the room, and I couldn't figure out where the hell he got scissors, since I'd locked them all up in our locking cabinet after the food-coloring disaster.

I dashed up the stairs, dragging Little Man behind me, shouting that everyone had to get their shoes on because we had to go to the ER, and I intercepted Nemo holding a particularly wicked pair of scissors, which I confiscated immediately. Then I tried to calm Little Man down enough to tell me exactly how the cut happened as I tried to administer first aid.

Here I need to back up a bit. As some of you may know, I used to own a rubber stamping business. The company I worked for sold all of their stamps with the rubber and cushioning separate from the wood blocks, and the buyer had to cut out the stamp images and mount them. To aid in this, they sold super sharp rubber-cutting scissors. The company now sells their images die-cut, so all you have to do is punch them out and mount them. I still have a sizable area in my basement that is a disastrous mess of craft supplies, which I need to clean out, and it has been there since Sunny was a baby. I haven't really touched it but fewer than a handful of times in the last 4 years, mostly just to move stuff around.

Note the really dirty blades.

Evidently, when Nemo left the basement he took a detour to the craft area and found a pair of the rubber cutting scissors. Anxious to show off his new toy to his brother, he went upstairs where the kids were wholly absorbed in Avatar, walked over to his brother, and cut the middle finger on his right hand between the knuckle and the base of the finger. I knew on sight that it needed stitches.

I got the food out of the oven and called BigDaddyFish, who was at work over an hour away. He came home, talked me down from DEFCON 5 to about DEFCON 4, and reassured me that based on the cell phone photo I sent and the fact that he wasn't gushing blood anymore, Little Man could wait until he got home to go to the ER to be stitched up. In the hour it took him to get home, though, Little Man worked himself into a hysterical tizzy about potentially getting stitches or glue to fix his finger. He wouldn't let me touch it, wouldn't let me wash it out, and a couple of times he told me he couldn't breathe because it hurt so bad. I kept talking to him, trying to calm him down and explain what would happen at the ER, but he insisted it would hurt and that he wasn't going to let them touch him. When BDF got home, we gave Little Man the choice of who would take him to the ER, and he picked me. BDF was kind of upset with me, because he was mad I hadn't locked up those scissors and there is still such a big mess in the basement after all this time. I didn't say much at all after he got home, and those who know me IRL know that means something Big is going on inside. He leaned in the window of the van as we were getting ready to leave and asked something like "You feel bad, don't you?" and all I could do was nod as the tears started to fall. He asked Little Man again if he was sure he wanted me to take him, because I was upset and felt bad that he got hurt. Little Man was insistent, though, so I got composed myself and off we went.

We are lucky to live in a neighborhood that has a freestanding ER about 3 miles from my house. It is usually fairly empty, espeically on a weeknight, and it only took us about 5 minutes to get there. The whole time, though, Little Man kept up a running monologue about how he didn't want to get a shot, he wasn't going to let anyone touch him with needles, and how it was going to hurt so bad. I kept having flashbacks to my own adventure with needing stitches when I was 7 and how my parents handled that. I kept reassuring him it would be okay, that we still didn't really know what they'd need to do, and he didn't need to worry. I told him that we wouldn't let anyone do any thing without thoroughly explaining what they were doing and why. We would make sure he was comfortable with it.

We got in and got through triage okay, though he got a little panicky any time anyone wanted to even look at his finger. The doctor, a young perky woman probably five years younger than I am and definitely good with kids, came in and examined him. She understood his panic and told him he'd need some "gluey string" to fix his finger. She put a topical liquid on his finger, a liquid she had to squirt out of the end of what looked like a needle, which of course made Little Man more anxious. It took her poking herself several times in the hand to prove to him that it wasn't a needle. As she worked she talked about how she has 7 year old twin girls and how she had to do stitches on one of her girls, and that he'd be fine. She did every thing she could to try to calm him down. We had to wait 30 minutes for the medicine to take effect, and as the 30 minutes wore on, the closer and closer we got to stitch time the more anxious and panicky Little Man got.

The doctor came back in, and Little Man was pretty much hysterical at this point. She talked to him about what she was doing, about how she had to test to see if the medicine took effect, and he was just too out of control to cooperate. She brought in two nurses, one on either side of him. One nurse held his arm while the doctor took a pin to test to see if he was numb. He wailed and wailed about how much it hurt and how he could still feel. So we had to do things the hard way. One nurse held his arm down, one nurse held his feet and other arm down, the doctor gave him two shots at the base of the finger, one on either side, I rubbed his chest and head and kept murmuring "It's okay, it's okay, it's going to be fine" while he wailed "No! NO! NONONONO! It HURTS!" Once the shots took effect, though, he stopped wailing, though he was still tense and on edge, but resigned to his fate. He looked so small, his eyes so beaten.

The doctor kept up a monologue the whole time she worked, talking about what she was doing, but also about the wonderful half-sleepover party that her twins had a couple of weeks ago. She told him she was using gluey string again, and he looked at me with accusing eyes as he said "You lied, Mom, you LIED! You told me she would use a needle!" and I just took it, since I knew she was using a needle, but she kept her hand cupped a bit so he couldn't see what she was doing, and I thought again about my own accusation to my father. When she was finished, she showed him the curved needle she was using, so like a fishhook, and told him "Your mom wasn't lying, bud. This is the needle I used, but it was like gluey string, because you couldn't feel it, right?" Then she bandaged him up, gave me a bunch of surgical instruments, and gave him a lime popsicle.

See? Ready for a second career, I am.

We came home weary and hungry. BDF had been so worried he cleaned and vacuumed the living room while I was gone. The other three kids were asleep. We sent Little Man to bed and BDF and I nibbled at our dinner, gone unappetizing in the hours since we'd left for the ER while BDF played Wii and I drank straight tequila, the only alcohol we had in the house. I've told everyone else they can't do anything to get another trip to the ER at least for the rest of the month.

Five stitches and a good excuse to give everyone the finger for the next week.

If a Tree Falls in a Forest and No One Hears It....

Little Man: Trout, you're SUCH an ASSHOLE!!!

Trout, mildly, as I open my mouth to read Little Man the riot act and find out where he learned that word (shut up, he didn't learn that one from me, other colorful words, but not that one): What's an asshole?

We're Busy!

It's hard to get alone time with your spouse when you have four small kids needing all manner of care running around the house trying to destroy it. You spend all day chasing them around and putting out fires, then at night you are just too exhausted to even look at each other, much less get a little action. During the crazy daytime hours, it's difficult to even find a few moments when the decibel level is low enough that you can actually discuss a strategy for managing the house, much less to tell each other how you feel. BigDaddyFish and I started about a year ago using our friend, the Locked Door, each and every time we needed it. Need to discuss who is going to drive who to school? Go behind the Locked Door. Feeling lonely because you haven't seen each other all week thanks to the long commute and a crazy activity week for the kids? Go behind the Locked Door for a little smooch. Need to give yourself a timeout before you have a stroke? Go behind the Locked Door. We've been using it for all kinds of things, not just Alone Time, if you get my meaning.

It's funny how each kid reacts differently to the Locked Door. Sometimes we don't even lock it, just close it, just to see what they'll do. Trout will stand outside it and whine (actually quite impressive since she's 9), but if ignored will go away, and usually won't try the door to see if it is actually locked. Little Man sees the door as a challenge and will immediately go try to find something to use to unlock it, but again, often without trying it first to see if it's unlocked. Sunny will try the door and then stand outside it and pound on it and try to engage us in conversation through the door. Nemo will pound on it and yell "Ma! Ma! Da Dee! Doow shut!" They all have trouble with knocking, hence the liberal use of the lock in the first place, and our usual response, no matter what we're doing behind that door, is "We're busy! Go [watch a movie/play in traffic/wait on your bed/ask your sister] away!" so that we have a few minutes to finish our conversation before facing the hordes.

Yesterday Sunny and Nemo successfully breached the closed but not locked door, and we discovered that Nemo needed a diaper change but that we didn't have any diapers. Sunny brought us a bunch from the other floor of the house without us asking, we kissed the top of her head and sent her away so she didn't have to smell her brother's toxic waste, and we shut the door. BDF changed the baby while I finished getting dressed and we both continued our conversation. Sunny decided we were taking too long after a minute or so, so she came and banged on the door. And before either BDF or I could open our mouths, Nemo yelled out "We're Bushzy!"

Good to know we're getting through to somebody.

Lesson Learned: Reasons Not to Stay Up All Night Drinking When You Are a Parent, Besides the Obvious

So, BigDaddyFish and I have been going through - something. I don't know what. Maybe a mid-life crisis? But we're both going through it together. We've been doing a lot of talking and connecting and going out together and just generally enjoying each other's company in ways we did back when we were dating and in the earlier years of our marriage, before the kids came along. And we've rediscovered a love of good red wine. It's been a lot of fun, and the kids have been patient with us. Most of the time.

This past weekend, BDF and I polished off a bottle of wine, and then...well. We were stupid. We moved on to scotch. We didn't go to bed until 7 am Saturday morning, and then got about three hours of sleep before we had to get up with the kids and be functional. We spent the day doing things for the kids, spending time with them, taking them to a cafe next to the train tracks in a nearby town that we like to frequent because we can eat good food and watch the trains go by right there. Our homeowner's association recently replaced the playgrounds in our development (like, last week) so we took the kids over to play on the new playground (which is awesome). We just focused on them. But that can only go so far. My stomach was roiling most of the day, though I never got sick, but the thought of cooking the ham I had planned to make was unappealing at best, so we cried Uncle, or, specifically, Uncle Dave (side note - he played the 9:30 club in DC on Friday night while BDF and I were trying to recapture our youth - check out that clip of him singing Sledgehammer), and he came to take care of the kids (bonus - he totally got them to clean up the family room, too. We'd be lost without him) while BDF and I went out for hangover curing burgers and fries. And no alcohol. We came home not long after the kids went to bed, and we went to bed ourselves.

At about 3 am, Trout came into our room complaining about a headache and sore throat. She hadn't eaten any dinner at all and had gone to bed early without complaining, and we had suspected for days she was coming down with something. She had a fever of 102, so we gave her some ibuprofen and a small snack, encouraging her to drink water and eat a bit. That backfired as she threw up about 20 minutes later, so we put her in the shower and got her cleaned up and cooled down and put back to bed at about 4 or so. She usually is our early riser, getting up between 7 and 8 (how we had a morning person is a mystery) and going down to watch tv, and she keeps an eye on the littles as they get up and come down while we sleep in. She did get up and go to watch tv, but she wasn't feeling well, and wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around her. BDF and I slept in rather late, finally dragging our asses out of bed about noon when Sunny and Little Man shrieked that Nemo was poopy. We told them to send him up and we'd take care of it.

When Nemo arrived in my room, he was soaking wet up to his shoulders, which to me meant only one thing: disaster. Visions of his previous forays into playing in the toilet crossed my mind, but Little Man told us he'd been in the kitchen, which we keep gated off, though everyone but Nemo can open the gate. I sent Little Man down to survey the damage in the kitchen while I changed Nemo, worried that the cleaning product cabinet had been left unlocked, or worse. I could not have imagined what actually happened.

Nemo got in the fish tank. He decided he wanted to play with the shee-shees, so he put the following items in the fish tank with the fish: two full cans of Juicy Juice concentrate (unopened), a couple of Christmas ornaments (one plastic, one glued), a piece from a Plan Toys vegetable garden set, my brand new stainless steel pepper grinder full of peppercorns (fully submerged), at least one Fisher Price Little People animal, a hair clip, Little Man's magic wand from magic club, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. He had messed up the filter, and I'm thanking God almighty that the light wasn't plugged in - we unplug it every night when we go to bed, and the kids don't plug it in - otherwise he might have been electocuted.

BDF went down to deal with the carnage from that as I got Nemo cleaned up and changed, and got dressed to take Trout to Doc-in-a-Box, as she was still feeling (and looking) just awful, and BDF suspected she had strep (she didn't, I was right, "just" a virus). He dealt with fishing (ha!) things out of the tank, and then he marshalled the remaining healthy kids to clean up the family room. I was supposed to go to a rubber stamp workshop, but with a sick Trout it just wasn't possible - taking all 4 kids to Doc-in-a-Box when only one needed it is a level of crazy that even BDF and I haven't achieved. DIAB was empty, though, so we were there and back pretty quick.

Even after fishing all the stuff out of the tank the water was still pretty cloudy. BDF had done a partial water change while I was gone, but he decided he wanted to do a full change but we didn't have enough water. So I went out to buy a bunch of gallons of distilled water. Before I left, though, I made a couple of sandwiches, and as I stood there eating my sandwich I studied the tank, and noticed something that looked a little weird on the bottom of the tank.

_{Yes, I actually could see in there.}

There were a bunch of little round things, odd looking things, like some sort of durable hard cereal, mixed in among the gravel on the bottom of the tank. BDF started fishing those out, and we found this:

_{Doesn't BDF have nice hands?}

A washable crayon, hence the reason the water wasn't coming clear even after a partial change, and the better part of a pound of knock-off m&ms from the bulk section of Whole Foods.

 

A full water change was in order, so I made a speed run and we changed the water. The stress of the whole thing made one of our females go into labor, so we got to see the baby fish before the goldfish manged to find and eat them all, which is something we knew was going on but we didn't want to think about, much less explain to the kids (we'll go back to breeding them once we have a new house and space to do it again - we bred before and at one time had 17 fish tanks [and a dog!] in an apartment). Miraculously, all the fish survived and don't really seem any worse for wear, other than the premature labor. It'll be a while before the tank conditions return to normal, though; all the plants are coated with cocoa butter and some sort of waxy substance from the m&ms.

This is the tank Sunday evening - it really didn't look any different the whole day on Monday, either. We had a good long talk with the kids about how important it is for HIS OWN SAFETY for Nemo to be kept out of the kitchen, and that they must always always always shut the gate when they go through it. We don't want anyone to get hurt.

So what have we learned boys and girls? Keeping the fish tank away from the fish-loving two year old isn't as easy as it seems. And for God's sake, save your midlife crises for times when a competent adult is in charge.

Lesson learned.

Words You Really Don't Want to Hear Two Days Before Christmas

"Look, Daddy, now my hair's not in my eyes anymore!"

The Mother of All Poop Stories

Motherhood is not for the weak stomached. I've caught puke in my bare hands as the kids threw up and couldn't get to the bathroom. I've been peed on and pooped on, and cleaned up a spectacular mess made by Little Man when he had projectile poop across the NICU. I've been spit up all over and been puked on in my hair and down my shirt. Nothing I couldn't handle. I've never had a kid get into poop artwork, and I've only had one incidence of poop in the tub. The worst poop problem we've had here is Sunny taking off her poopy diaper and throwing it at me. It was bound to happen sooner or later. So really, I shouldn't have been surprised (NOTE: If you have a weak stomach, read no further. You have been warned).

Sunny attends preschool in the next town south of here, a distance of about 10 miles that takes about a 20 minute drive. I like to leave a bit early to pick her up at her 1pm dismissal, because Nemo falls asleep in the car and that's the best way to ensure he gets a decent nap before we go meet BigDaddyFish for lunch. I usually leave about 12:15, after Nemo has had a chance to watch his favorite Noggin show, Oswald.

This morning, I was in the kitchen looking at porn reading blogs doing the dishes, and Nemo came up to our kitchen gate, crying and spitting and saying something about "Chock-lit." He held something in his hand, and I figured he picked up a piece of stray chocolate from the floor or in the couch cushions that I hadn't found on my cleaning binge and was trying to eat it.

"No! Dirty, Nemo, dirty, don't eat that! Spit it out!" I told him as I ran from the sink to the kitchen gate. He continued sputtering and coughing and gagged and threw up a bit. I reached him and the stench was unbearable.

"Nemo! What did you do? Are you okay? What did you eat?!?" I shrieked as he shoved his hand down the front of his pants again, muttering about the chocklit and "messy". That's when it hit me.

Nemo has developed a habit lately of putting his hand down his diaper and playing with himself. Today, he apparently grabbed a turd and pulled it out of his diaper, and thought it looked an awful lot like chocolate. He learned the folly in that pretty quick.

Choking down my own puke, I grabbed the wipes and stripped him. He had apparently been squishing around in there and in an effort to clean the mess off his hands, he'd wiped them on his sweatshirt. I went at him with about eleventy million wipes (and I pride myself on my two-wipe diaper changes, so that's saying something) and finally decided it was just too much of a mess and made a dash for the tub.

One emergency bath later, I crammed him in clean clothes at 12:35, anxiously watching the clock. Although he was clean he still had poopbreath, so I grabbed a couple of Grasshopper cookies to deal with that. BDF had said he would pick up Sunny and meet me in the parking lot, so I wasn't too worried, but still wanted to make it. I got in the car at 12:43 and BDF texted me that he had a meeting and couldn't make it to pick up Sunny. So I skedaddled. I pulled into the parking lot at 12:58.

And that is why I will be having tequila tonight. The end.

Sunny Says, and then Little Man Says

"Mommy, my heawt tells me what I want to bring to play with, and it didn't said I want to bring my ghostie."

"Sunny, it's 'say' not 'said.'"

"Wait, did you just correct your sister's grammar? That's my boy." Actually, that's what I thought. What I really said was "Little Man, it's not nice to correct your sister. It hurts her feelings." But I was actually quite proud.

Working on a BlogHerDC recap post, with pictures even.

Ma Bebe's Got Skillz

Tonight I went out to dinner with Little Man - we try to take each kid out for some one-on-one time from time to time, and we've found that it pays great dividends as far as their behavior is concerned. Plus it's fun. My 20 year HS reunion was tonight, but I figure if I'd wanted to keep in touch with those people I would have - and I did, with some of them. I also was able to make contact with one of the few who I'd like to reconnect with, through classmates. I frankly had more fun at a deli with my seven year old. Either I have my priorities straight or I'm officially old. Probably a bit of both.

Anyway, that meant that I left BigDaddyFish home with the other three monsters terrors monkeys darlings. He's recovering from a sinus infection that kicked his ass the past week, and really isn't up to, well, not even 70%, much less 100. I came home to find BDF and Trout sitting on the couch watching Cops at about 90 decibels, Sunny strewing Barbies from one end of the room to the other, and Nemo practically climbing me because he was so hungry. I got Nemo settled in his high chair with some food, made a plate for Sunny and sat her at the table while I put some groceries away, and then went out to talk to BDF. While sitting next to him, I happened to do a visual survey of the floor and noticed something odd.

"Why is there a wet diaper on the floor?" I looked at BDF. He denied changing the baby.

"He must have taken it off himself."

"I don't think so. He's wearing overalls." BDF walked into the kitchen, threw away the diaper, and asked the baby if he took his diaper off. I missed that part of the conversation, since I was in the other room, but BDF assured me the baby still had his diaper.

The baby fell asleep in his high chair, the other three were massively overtired and tantruming, and our Wii wasn't working, so we had plenty to distract us as we got kids in bed and dealt with our Wii (which appears to be FUBAR and will have to be sent to Nintendo to fix - we'll be Wii-less for wiiks - no Guitar Hero - I may perish). Once everyone else was settled, I picked Nemo up out of his high chair to change and put in bed. He was very very sweaty, so I really didn't think too much about the fact that he was drenched, til I put my arm under his bottom to carry him up the stairs.

Yes, indeedy, my baby DID take off his own diaper underneath his overalls, without removing any of his clothes. And he was OUT, sound asleep. I gave him a quick baby wipe and washcloth wipe down to remove the blue fuzz from the overalls from all of his parts, put a new diaper on him, and tucked him in, all without waking him.

Maybe I have a couple of skillz, too.

Sand in Your Eye and Terror in Your Heart

We arrived Sunday too late to really do anything besides unpack, grocery shop, and run up to the top of the access walk to see just how close to the ocean we really were, so Monday morning was our first trip to the ocean. It was the first ever view of the ocean for Nemo, the first view of the Atlantic for Sunny. The day was bright and clear, the temps were comfortable with a good breeze coming off the ocean and low humidity. The first thing I noticed, though, was how rough the surf was, the roughest I'd seen to that point.

We meandered down the beach and found a good spot to put our stuff, not far from the access point, and not too close to the surf. Nemo was scared of it, and he'd cry and cry every time any member of our family would go near the water, much less in it. Unfortunately, the rest of the family is made up of daredevils who immediately jumped in. I tend toward the cautious, and I noticed that not many other people were playing in the water at all, even along the edges. I asked BigDaddyFish not to go in, not to take them in, but he says they're okay with him, he can handle it. I was worried, though, since I believe he tends to underestimate threat and he thinks I overestimate it, but I don't ever want my fears about things to keep my kids from living their lives - I don't want to be the parent like that guy on the tv commercial who puts flippers and a life jacket and a floaty ring and goggles and more on his daughter only to have them jump into two feet of water. BDF and I had already given the kids the "Safe Surf" lecture at least three times, so I backed off and let him take them in. BDF took one kid at a time in the water to jump around in the waves a bit, no more than thigh deep for him, so he could hold onto the kids and keep them safe. My job was to be the boundary enforcer, not allowing any of the other kids near the water. This wasn't hard because at that point the other kids were pretty cautious and didn't want to get wet yet.

While Nemo discovered that you could throw! sand! and it would fly! into your eye! or your mother's eye! I noticed the beach patrol guy coming down the beach on his little four wheeler thingy, stopping every so often and saying something to people on the beach. The wind was blowing, sand was flying, he was hopping along, and I'm trying to keep track of all the small people in all this mess and not get blinded by the sand Nemo was trying to cover me with. Trout was in the water with BDF doing their surf jumping thing, and the beach patrol guy worked his way to stop in front of us.

"We aren't allowing swimming today," he says. "We're telling people that even if you are staying in the shallows, like you are, it isn't safe to be swimming," I hear him say, as I keep an eye on all the kids to make sure no one goes into the water. I turn my head toward BDF to tell him, but he's already walked up to where we are so that he can hear, about 10 feet away from the beach patrol guy and me. Then I see Trout, and she runs sideways and jumps into a wave, her back to the surf in direct violation of what we've taught her, not seeing the larger one behind her, and then her feet are up in the air, her arms are flailing and she's going, on her back, she can't get her footing and she's being pulled out.

"GET HER, B!" I scream, knowing she can't get herself righted and she can't swim. She. Can't. Swim. It's too rough and she's being pulled out and there's no way I can get to her and BDF grabs her shoulder just as she starts to go by. She's coughing and sputtering and spitting sand and can't get out of the surf fast enough, but she's nodding and saying "I'm okay, I'm okay," between coughs. I realized I was holding my breath and let it out as the tears and nausea come, realizing just how close we were to losing her, even with the beach patrol guy standing right there.

He continued a bit of a lecture to me and BDF, mostly BDF, about not swimming because exactly what just happened could happen, with tragic results. He even said "I hate to say it, but, Death." He got back on his little ATV thing and drove off down the beach. I looked at BDF, put my hand up to lecture him, opened my mouth, and couldn't speak. He told me to put my hand down, I didn't need it, he knew.

I walked to our towels and sat down by Trout, biting my lip and drawing blood so I didn't start screaming. After all, she was safe. Sandy, shaken, but safe. Instead I sat and shook, waves of nausea and adrenaline cascading through me, unable to do anything about it but wait until it passed. The hell of it all is that Trout didn't really seem too bothered by it. Independently of each other BDF and I both sat her down and tried to explain just how close she had come to being swept out to sea, of us losing her, and she kept saying "I know, I KNOW. I'm Fine." She may have been, but I wasn't.

We let them play, primarily in the sand, for an hour more before heading back to the cottage. It was only then that I saw the red flags showing the beach as closed to swimming. I guess what Trout needed was to sleep on it, because for the rest of the trip she didn't want to go further into the water than one foot from the edge of the wash. We went to the beach Friday morning before we left, and that was the roughest surf I've ever seen. I was worried sick about it. BDF wanted to take each kid in so they could feel the power of the surf enough to knock their legs out from under them, but with him holding them, so they would develop more respect for the ocean and what it can do.

Trout refused to go. Lesson learned.

Little Exhibitionist

This afternoon I was making dinner and Trout was playing some weird complex game in which she stripped Nemo down to his diaper and wrapped blankets around him, then pulled the blankets off while he shrieked and giggled. There was more to it than that, I think, but that's what got through to my brain which was busy trying to cook and not burn anything.

Anyway, about 10 minutes later I called Sunny over to the kitchen gate (we keep Nemo out of there - it's just easier for all of us) to come in and eat - we've found that shift eating sometimes works better when BigDaddyFish isn't home for all of us to eat together at the table. Nemo followed her with a shit-eating grin on his face and just giggling to beat the band, and I thought he wanted to eat, too. 'Til I looked at him good.

He was playing with a "toy" that had him giggling like crazy, and that toy was his unit, for lack of a better word. He had somehow managed to pull it out of the diaper without taking the diaper off, just kinda draping it over the top, and he was, of course, grabbing at it and laughing like crazy.

I took it to mean he needed a diaper change, which I put on backwards to try and thwart him a bit. I didn't think I'd need to tell him to keep it in his pants for quite a few years yet.