Day Off

Yesterday I stayed home and took a day out of the world. I sat on the steps of my deck in the rare winter sunshine. I watched part of the second season of "Clatterford," a BBC comedy that makes me laugh and nod my head in recognition. I read some more, did some stretches, knitted a little, and got into my gym clothes. I couldn't make myself go the gym though. Then I started thinking, remembering.

August 1981, Love the Rosebowl Shirt

I thought about my life as a mother when both my sons were under 10 and all the fun we had, and some not so fun times. My youngest climbed the fountain in the Seattle Center and got blown off by a water spout, and fell onto another pipe which gouged a huge gash in the side of his head and at first it looked like his eye was punched out but no, thank God. And as soon as it happened I was thinking what kind of a mother lets her little kid do that. It didn't help that there were many, many other children on the fountain too that hot Memorial Day. A doctor and a nurse appeared out of the crowd to help and assure his eye was intact. Then came my sister and her partner. They were parked nearby and took us to Children's Orthopedic Hospital ER who by then knew us by name. The x-ray showed a crack but the MD said it didn't look right (what?) and had it redone. The crack was a flaw on the film. So he was patched, stitched, and he healed good as new.

My eldest at 5 or 6 visited Children's ER for the first time after running into the kitchen to show me his new "trick." The trick was making a bb fall out of his ear. Before I could say "no" he dropped it in his ear and it took up residency. I tried sucking it out with one of those bulb things you use on baby noses and gave up for fear of pushing it in farther. They managed to get it out without surgery but it took a long time and was very painful for him. The doctor told him he was going to give it one last dig and it would hurt and asked him if he would "let" him do it. My child said "yes." It came out but God forbid I ever hear a child scream like that again. This was the same child who at age three chewed a candy wrapper into a wad and shoved it up his nose so far he couldn't get it out. Mom and her trusty tweezers fixed that one.

Their Daddy and I used to call them the Flying Rascoulie Brothers. Both of the little twerps were walking by nine months and used their new found knowledge to climb over the side of their cribs and drop themselves onto the floor. So they had regular beds very early. Try explaining to a 9 month that he has to stay in bed. So they got rocked to sleep and quietly tucked in for the night. They come by it honestly, I was the sister who jumped off the roof of the house with an umbrella and at age three got up and left my parents house for a midnight stroll around Seattle. Mom said a "bum" came to the door and asked if she was missing a little girl, he'd been going house to house. My youngest did that too, but unlike my parents I heard him. He was down the walk before I caught him though, laughing and running away from me. We put those little hook and eye things on our doors for awhile. Their favorite entertainer for years was Gallagher and his smashed watermelons. Not sure what that has to do with anything, but they sure liked him. Probably still do.