Potty Mouth

     After nearly a year of trial and error, success and failure, joyous celebration and befuddled frustration, we have finally ascended that seemingly insurmountable Mt. Everest of toddlerdom: potty training. Never in my still early, naïve career of parenthood could I have ever imagined that not pooping in your pants would be such a difficult goal to achieve.

     The success, however, is not yet complete and there are still episodes of tragic embarrassment that have to be endured. My wife and I have found, that through the apparently never ending exercises of toilet training, one thing has remained constant with our daughter and that is: EVERYTHING is more important than stopping to use the bathroom. One shining example that happened recently involved my wife as she and our daughter met a friend and her mother at a water park for an afternoon of attempted fun. This, mind you, was the first time our daughter had ever gone without a diaper in the water, so not only was this going to be one giant leap for toddler-kind, it was to be attempted at the risk of the proverbial Baby Ruth in the swimming pool.

     All was going well for the first half hour or so until our daughter yelled at the top of her lungs “I NEEDTA GO POTTY, MOMMY!” To which, my wife, with the reflexes of a Jedi Master, leapt across open water, grabbed our daughter and leapt back to solid ground without as much as getting her toes wet, then sprinted at light speed to the rest room to ensure our daughter made it to the toilet in time. Sliding into the bathroom like a cat running across a tile floor, my wife pounced into an open stall, and in one fluid movement stripped the wet swim suit off of our daughter and plopped her on the questionably sanitary toilet seat just in time to hear, “No, I don’t need to pee pee, I wanna go play.” Bewildered, but not defeated, my wife waited a few minutes with our daughter still perched on the toilet just to make sure the coast was clear. It apparently was, as to her account nothing happened but wiggling and begging to go back out and play.

     Back out they went. My daughter made a bee line for the water to play with her friend and my wife sat on the edge with her mom friend as they watched the two toddlers splashing before them. Not five minutes after our daughter re-entered the kiddie splash pool, my wife noticed her grabbing her butt as what appeared to be a tail was poking through the back of her swim suit. Armageddon had commenced. Time ground to a stop as adrenaline began coursing through my wife’s veins, elevating her senses to uncharted levels. Almost telekinetically, she reached out and grabbed our daughter as the protrusion in her tiny swimsuit grew in slow motion. Wincing while holding our daughter with arms fully extended, much like Wile E. Coyote would hold a cartoon bomb that was about to go abysmally wrong, my wife, again, ran full speed to the public restroom and found an open stall. Alas, it was too late; the deed was done. The inherent problem with one-piece bathing suits, my wife suddenly found, is that there really is no control over any potential contents whilst you are stripping said swim suit from a toddler. As my wife struggled to strip the wet swim suit from our squirming daughter, the single, perfectly shaped poop that had been deposited in the back of the swim suit flew out, landed on the floor, rolled under the stall and rested against the flip flop of the seemingly preoccupied lady sitting there. My wife and daughter simultaneously screamed in surprise, fear, and awe as they watched the horror unfold before them. My daughter whispered, “Mommy, the poop ran away,” as my wife scrambled to get a handful of toilet paper to retrieve the offense before the lady who was apparently sleeping in the next stall awoke to find that her foot was being attacked by a rogue poo. Swiftly, gingerly and protected by a pound of toilet paper, my wife was able to roll the stinker back away from the comatose lady’s flip flop, pick it and deposit it in her own toilet. It was done; the crisis had been overcome and the only evidence that would remain from the event would be the emotional trauma that would haunt my wife for the foreseeable future.

     As the events of the day had been just short of unbelievable and as it was getting late in the afternoon, my wife decided that it would be best if she and our daughter came home to wash away the combination of chlorine and unfortunate sewage that had accumulated during their fun get away. They came inside and I was briefed on the events that had unfolded as my wife started a bath for our daughter. As I could see that my wife was clearly stressed, I made my way to the kitchen to fetch a glass of wine for her. It was as I was on my way back to the bathroom with the wine that the screaming started. I stepped into the bathroom just as my wife started yelling, “GREAT! Now there’s a shit in the bathtub…I have had enough shit for today!”  Apparently a poop nugget had somehow unknowingly been lodged between our daughter’s butt cheeks and when she submerged into the bath, it broke free and popped to the surface like one of the yellow barrels from Jaws. I took over the haz-mat clean up and handed my wife her glass of wine as she walked out to have a few minutes for herself. My nearly three year old daughter’s eyes were wide with confusion as she questioned, “There’s a shit in the bathtub? Daddy, who shit in the bathtub?”

That blessed day of the last accident is right around the corner, I can smell it. 

Whatever Happened to Saturday Mornings?

     When I was growing up, there was a certain ritual surrounding Saturday mornings. It had been passed down from generation to generation and had evolved to meet the needs of the parents and children who wanted it, but regardless of what decade or in which family it was being observed, it revolved around two primary pillars: sugar and television.  I remember countless Saturday mornings lying, stomach down on our vintage 1976 green(ish) carpet, as close as legally allowable to our three ton, monolithic, Magnavox cabinet television which, for all of its behemoth size and child crushing weight, had only a twenty-five inch screen. It amazes me that my phone today is capable of better picture quality and entertainment choices than that glorious monstrosity ever was. On that screen played some of the best Saturday morning cartoons ever enjoyed by children, and to keep us watching those cartoons my mom fed us a never ending supply of super concentrated breakfast sugar. If it wasn't steaming hot, chocolate-flavored toaster pastries encrusted in a crunchy, sugary coating (Hey kids, try microwaving them if you can’t reach the toaster!), it was a bowl full of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs (Hey, Moms! Now made with crackly rice product, because everyone knows that rice is healthy!) which were covered in full fat, Vitamin D enriched, super homogenized, bovine-growth-hormone saturated milk. And boy, was it good stuff. My brother, sister, and I would stare, expressionless at the television for hours as a sugary crust developed around our mouths while we ate breakfast and watched nonsensical cartoon characters beat each other senseless, sword fight, shoot each other with whatever cartoon gun they had, blow each other up, throw one another off of cliffs, or whatever other ultra-violent acts you could string together in a cartoon to advertise the latest action figures. The cartons of that day reflected the socio-political atmosphere of the times. We were in the midst of the Cold War. There were always some problems with the Russians, but I never really could make out what it was. The Middle East was in turmoil, there was always something on the news about bombings. And some terrorists had blown up an airliner. The fact that these things happened registered in my mind, but I didn’t grasp the importance, the international ramifications, or the way in which those occurrences would shape our future. I didn’t have to, I had my family and we had our breakfast and our cartoons on a Saturday morning. Everything was good with the world.

     Fast-forward thirty years. My television screen is fifty-five inches across, about a half an inch thick and weighs what seems like six ounces. It literally has the ability to play any television show from any decade, including some of the best Saturday morning cartoons ever watched by children. The problem is they’re the same Saturday morning cartoons I watched because nobody makes Saturday morning cartoons like they used to.  As she hasn’t been exposed to cartoons from my era (frankly because they’re just too violent for kids to watch) my daughter will ask to watch some strange show that she heard about from someone at pre-school and we will gladly find it for her on our super-powered television. Once we start playing it, my wife and I will instantly revert back to Saturday morning behavior from decades past and zone out, eyes a glaze and faces wiped free of any expression while we drink our coffee. And while she and I are watching some surreal cartoon about a dog who talks to people because she ate too much alphabet soup, our daughter will sneak into the bathroom, steal some toilet paper, climb back onto the couch, tear the toilet paper into little bits and sprinkle it onto our heads, and we are none the wiser until we start raining little toilet paper snowflakes about the floor as we walk around. As are the cartoons, the days of sugar packed breakfast bits are certainly a thing of the past. In case it hasn't been made abundantly clear in anything I've written before, giving my daughter sugar is tantamount to inciting a fission reaction in Uranium 235 and watching the surrounding Earth melt because of energy that is unleashed. Not to mention the fact that it’s just not the best thing a child can have for breakfast.

     This particular morning, cartoons were on, we were having breakfast and just as if it were 1986 there were problems with the Russians, the Middle East was in turmoil, and some terrorists had tragically blown up another airliner.  My wife was drinking her coffee (still with bits of toilet paper scattered in her hair), my daughter was practicing her twirl in her new “ballerina” dress, and I decided to leave around 8:30am to make the trip North along the coast a few cities and go to my barber (I am very particular about who cuts my hair, and it is indeed a strange treat to have a gentleman with a heavy Korean accent sing along with “Staying Alive” as it blasts over the oldies station while he cuts my hair). As I drove along the rocky and constantly shifting Pacific coast, dodging the participants of the weekly Tour de Palos Verdes,  I opened the sunroof (the poor man’s convertible) and let the heavy, marine layer air flood into the car as I turned on some Rodrigo y Gabriella (excellent driving music). The air held a faint, warm saltiness that it had gathered as it crept in over the Pacific like a Mediterranean fog, and it flavored the breeze with its sweet brininess as it settled like a blanket over the rocky peninsula. With the tranquility of the drive, the frenzied Spanish guitar plinking through the stereo and the still fresh vision of my daughter twirling in her dress that was playing like a .GIF in my mind’s eye that I was subconsciously timing to the guitar music, I knew that despite what may be going on elsewhere, I had my family, it was Saturday morning, and all was well with the world.              

You Never Forget Your First Time

     The fact that we have made it nearly three years without a major medical incident actually rather surprises me. Given the unwavering rambunctiousness and absolute disregard for caution normally displayed by my perpetually energized daughter, I generally feel that I am constantly wobbling on the precipice of a trip to the emergency room.  My fear finally achieved fruition on a recent Friday evening when a two-and-a-half year old found that she was no match for gravity or the principle of the fulcrum.

     My daughter has stopped taking naps. My wife and I believe that her stubbornness is outweighing her need to sleep, as although she develops the zombie eyes of death every afternoon, she absolutely refuses to nap. This has been made abundantly clear to me by her pre-school teacher who consistently regales me with stories of how my daughter, despite her obvious fatigue, tries her best to wake up her little friends during nap time so they can go perform random acts of anarchy and chaos. I have found that by Friday evening, after a full week of no napping, trying to pick my daughter up from school without incident is akin to attempting to put an angry Tasmanian Devil into a straight jacket. Therefore, I try to prepare myself mentally before undertaking that task.

     This particular Friday evening pick up was going as I had anticipated: an absolute refusal to cooperate accompanied by incomprehensible, guttural screams which I’m fairly certain were curse words from some Germanic based language. After a few minutes, she had calmed down to the point where we could walk toward the corner of the classroom where her cubby-hole, containing her lunch box and her never used cot linens, was located. I was holding her hand as we were walking (I have to hold her hand when we are trying to leave because, if I don’t, she will turn and run at warp speed out of her class, through the hallway and into a room far, far away where she will hide under whatever furniture is present so she can assert her desire to stay and play with her friends, even though they are all going home as well, albeit with much less of a drama filled and catastrophic process) and as we approached her cubby-hole to retrieve her belongings, she decided to once again ignite a toddler temper tantrum by dramatically jumping, performing a perfect plank in mid-air and flopping flat on the floor, all whilst kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, because I was holding her hand during that entire, split-second exhibition, her elbow became the hinge which was swinging her entire mass. Toddler elbows, apparently, are not made to do that, so they hyper-extend and induce a condition which I now know is called Nursemaid’s Elbow.

     She was actually rather calm and quiet in the Urgent Care waiting room, which combined with the fact that she was not moving her left arm, illustrated that there was indeed something wrong. She passed the two hours we sat in that chamber of horrors by making funny faces at the nurse behind the admissions desk and pointing at random, injured people and whispering, “Look, they’re in the hospital too.” After another hour having x-rays taken and being subjected to the prodding of a rather nice, but totally befuddled medical practitioner, I have found evidence that non-pediatric physicians really don’t know what to do with children other than offer them lollipops and princess stickers in hopes that they will be quiet and grow out of whatever is ailing them. This became inherently obvious when the doctor said, “The X-Ray is normal, but her elbow is obviously in pain…I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Here, have some princess stickers. I suggest you take her to an orthopedist. I’ll call you to find out how she’s doing.” He never called. Other than getting a cool, black arm sling to keep her immobilized, we were no closer to being healed. I could have saved three hours and given her some princess stickers myself, we have tons of them.   

     MY wife was just as flabbergasted as I was at Western Medicine’s apparent ineffectiveness, so she aired her disgruntled point of view with a brief synopsis of the night’s event on Facebook (I am not at all savvy on the use of social media, so she takes care of all that). Literally fifteen seconds later a good friend of mine responded with, “Oh did you snatch her arm or something? It’s happened to my kids, like, three times. It’s called Nursemaid’s Elbow. You’ll have to give it a Mr. Miyagi.” As I vaguely remembered the Karate Kid reference, I texted him to find out a little more info. “What is it?”

“Nursemaid’s Elbow. Look it up on YouTube. I fixed my kids’ elbows when the doctors didn't know what was wrong, sounds like the same thing.”

“Does it really work?”

“Yeah, it works. It’s going to HURT, but it’ll be fine right after.”

      Since Western Medicine had failed me miserably, I saw nothing wrong with taking a totally unqualified Chinese-American’s medical advice, which was based solely on internet videos and a 1980s action movie. I watched the suggested video and memorized the procedure. My wife had just given our daughter at bath and she was now sitting on our bed whilst my wife attempted to get her into her pajamas. I stealthily crept to the other side of the bed and approached quietly, as not to rouse any suspicion from my daughter. I gave my wife, who was aware of my plan, but in total disbelief, a nod to signal its commencement. The game was now afoot. I crawled onto the bed and gently grasped my daughter’s injured arm as my wife held her good arm away, and I began the procedure. A slow movement here, then a total extension and flexion, and “POP”, everything was back as it should have been. Good as new. The instant the arm popped back into place, my daughter went off like an atomic bomb and screamed, “NAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” and began to pummel the daylights out of me with her newly functioning arm. Her other arm, which my wife had recently released, quickly joined the fray and began to batter my face with all of the vigor a two-and-a-half year old can muster. The only reaction I could summon was hysterical laughter as I realized the utter ridiculousness of the situation. My wife, apparently overcome by the sight of her crazed daughter trying to murder her hysterical husband, muttered, “I have to go…” and with mouth agape and eyes wide in disbelief at the insanity that had unfolded before her turned and sauntered toward the stairs.

I hope the next time is much less awkward. 

Every Day is the 14th

     Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that it has been several weeks since the last time I posted anything. Unfortunately, as someone with a full time job who is also a full time husband, the father of a two-year old, and a general purveyor of insanity, writing (although I rather enjoy it) ranks somewhere around number ninety-five on my list of things to do. As brilliant and fantastic as it would be for this to be my full time job, writing overly dramatic stories about the trials and joys of life with a highly energetic toddler does not come with a paycheck. That being said, I will do my best to keep the stories coming in semi-regular intervals.

     Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and when one has young children who are in school, it means it is time for the Valentine’s Day pre-school party. For days before, my daughter was practically rabid with excitement as she was looking forward to the party which awaited her. She couldn't stop talking about all the things she was going to get to eat at school, such as: cupcakes, cookies, chicken nuggets, cupcakes, pies, cupcakes, chocolate, doughnuts, strawberries, cupcakes, candies and chocolate cupcakes. I knew going into it that it was probably going to be a challenging evening, so as I walked into pre-school to pick up my daughter, I was braced for the inevitable.

     I've come to realize that pre-school teachers find joy in inflicting undue stress on parents with young children, and they look at the aftermath of school parties as some sort of hazing ritual which parents must endure. As I tried my best to peel my daughter from the ceiling of the classroom and cope with the sugar overdose that had obviously taken place, the teacher starting wringing her hands and laughing like a mad scientist who was about to unleash the fury of her creation on some innocent village (my house) and she started saying, “She’s yours now! Have fun tonight.” As I collected my daughter, who was obviously high on chocolate, I was handed, by the mad scientist teacher lady, a white paper bag full of candy which had a balloon tied to the top. Of course, as soon as my cracked out daughter saw it, she started screaming, “MY CANNNNDY! MY BALOOOOOOON! MY CANDY! I WANT MY CANNNNDDDY! I WANNA EAT IT!” Anyone with any common sense or who has had any experience with children knows that waving a bag of candy in front of a toddler who has been fed copious amounts of sugar for eight solid hours is tantamount to waving a bag of heroin at a junkie. It will, unequivocally, lead to bad things. So, as I loaded my strung out daughter into her car seat, the only way I could stop her screaming was, of course, to hand her the giant bag of candy. I could still hear the pre-school teacher’s maniacal laughter in my head and, I thought, in the chaos of trying to get everyone loaded into the car with as little commotion as possible, I could see the pre-school teacher peering out from the classroom window, face pressed against the glass, smiling and laughing as her wicked plan came to fruition.

     The ride home was blur of screaming, ruffling through a sack of candy, random bits being thrown about like someone looking for a treasure in a sack of rubbish, shouting what she planned on eating, what her favorite candy was, another fit of screaming, then yelling, “I’M TRAPPED” as the car seat straps prevented her from ricocheting around the inside of the car like some cartoon balloon that was having its air all let out. Things then took a slight downturn as she, apparently, began experiencing chocolate withdrawals. Her voice changed slightly, got a little deeper and she started growling and saying, “NAOOO! NOOOO! I NEED CHOCOLATE…I NEEEEEEED IT”, like a little, tiny Hulk who was running out of Gamma Rays. And then she broke down into a quiet sob.

     It was just a ploy. The pure, nuclear energy being generated by the processing of sugar in her tiny body was not letting up. As we got home, I had to pick up the debris of strewn candy that had been tossed about and as I put each one back in the white bag, she would say, “I’m gonna eat that.” When we finally made it inside and to the kitchen, the only possible answer for what she would want for supper was “Chocolate.” Mommy was nice enough to have ready some chocolates and a Valentine’s Day card with a detachable, paper Valentine’s Day crown on it, so, out of the spirit of the holiday and because I knew she wouldn't stop until she got them anyway, I relented and let her have a few more pieces of candy. We then detached and assembled her paper crown which made her look like Princess Valentine, Bearer of Hyperactivity as she bounced around the room and screamed for more candy.

     My daughter has recently become totally enamored with Alice in Wonderland (the original Disney animated film), so for the last week or so it has been playing non-stop in the background. As you can imagine, (or maybe my experience is so surreal that you actually can’t) this entire episode played out as if I was trapped in some Disney home for the insane. I had my daughter, who was wearing a giant paper crown, bouncing off of the walls and screaming for candy, while in the background I had the Mad Hatter and the March Hare screaming about Unbirthdays to the theme song of the spinning teacups at Disneyland, and there I was, just trying to make sense of it all and make it stop before my head exploded. I did. There was no explosion. I was able to get my daughter in bed at her normal time of around seven-thirty. And as she was still high on sugar, she spent the next hour and a half sitting up in her bed and barking like a dog. I hope they don’t do anything special for St. Patrick’s Day.

One Flew Over the Baby’s Crib

     I’m not sure if the phenomenon I've been exposed to is unique to my daughter or if the majority of parents with toddlers witness similar episodes, but I believe with near certainty that my daughter either suffers from a severe, yet undiscovered form of disassociative identity disorder, or she has had some sort of symbiotic alien attach to her brain which makes her act as though her mind is fractured into different people whose thoughts and feelings violently contradict one another’s, and whoever is in there must battle each other, out loud, for every single decision that needs to be made, regardless of how menial it may be.

     Maybe it’s because I’m still not completely healed from my pneumonia and I've not yet quite  regained the constitution required to adequately manage life with a high energy toddler, but I have noticed a drastic increase in what I can only really define as moments of apparent insanity. Every day decisions, such as “What would you like for dinner?” are turning into one sided shouting matches that leave me absolutely befuddled and slightly fearful for my safety. As I was driving my daughter home from pre-school recently, I posed the question of what should be for dinner and it was initially met with a pensive silence. My thought was (as I, who is a dad without, as my wife puts it, “the intuition of knowing when to not speak”) to offer suggestions of what COULD be had for dinner. “Mac-n-cheese?”

 “NO!”

“ Fish fingers?”

 “NOOO!”

“Pasta and meatballs?”

 “NAAAOOOOOOOOOOO!” Ok, I thought, I’ll just leave it for now. Then I heard a tiny voice mutter from the backseat of the car, “I want mac-n-cheese.” Brilliant. Problem solved. 

 “OK, I’ll make some mac-n-cheese for you as soon as we..”

“NNNNAAAAAAOOOOOOOO!!!!! NO MAC-N-CHEESE!! NOO! NOOOO!!” Screams and tears and shouting erupted from the backseat as if the tiny two year old strapped in the car seat who had experienced a brief moment of lucidity was now being beaten aback and silenced by whichever mind invading alien was trying to make its presence known, along with the fact that it had an unnatural hatred for macaroni and cheese. The screaming and apparent internal conflict continued for the remaining ten minutes of the drive, during which time I cranked up the volume to the radio and belted out a rather embarrassing version of “Smoke on the Water” (which was apparently being played in honor of the fires currently raging northeast of L.A.) while keeping an eye on my daughter in the rear view mirror to make sure her face didn't transform into some otherworldly visage or she didn't start tearing a rift in the space-time continuum. If anything of the sort had started to happen, I’m pretty sure I would have bailed out of the car while still at speed, knowing she probably would have used her extraterrestrial powers to fly the car back to her home planet.

     The internal crisis she had been suffering apparently came to a quick and decisive end because as we walked inside our home and made our way to the living room, she said rather affirmatively, “I want man-n-cheese.” I said nothing at all as I turned on Netflix and started whatever random, nonsensical children’s show was queued, hoping to keep her distracted just long enough for me to slink into the kitchen and microwave the container of macaroni I had previously made.

     Things such as this are occurring with much more frequency than they had previously, but this type of outburst is not the only thing that has me concerned. My daughter can be laughing and having a wonderful time and suddenly, without warning or apparent reason will burst into a fit of screaming and flailing, as if someone has just destroyed her most prized possession. Or, she can be playing and acting somewhat relaxed (which for her, is still, in my experience, at an energy level about ten times higher than normal children) and then will suddenly and without provocation explode in a fury of activity. I liken it to a power station that has generated way too much electricity, so before it disintegrates in a giant ball of lightning, it must funnel that excess energy somewhere. This means for a little while, the lamps in the local town burn a bit brighter, the clocks run faster and the glow on the television screen just won’t go away. In my daughter’s case, it means she begins to shake violently whilst yelling, “I’M FREAKING OUT, DADDY!”  Then she’ll begin to run in tiny circles that get  larger in diameter and exponentially faster with each consecutive lap until Newton’s first law of motion takes effect and she smacks into either a wall or a piece of furniture, thus ending her centripetal acceleration and beginning screams of shock and surprise. Normally, this is enough to reset her system, as it were, and return her to semi-normal state of toddlerdom.

     I've recently been wondering how people would react if I were to have outbursts of insanity akin to my daughter’s. I can see myself at work as my compatriots decide where we will venture for lunch and one would ask, “How about sushi?” and my response would be, “NAAOOOO! NO SUSHI! NO!” as I start flailing my arms and running in circles in my office as I cry. I’m pretty sure, though, that actions of that sort would land me in a dingy hospital, lying in a bed and freshly lobotomized where another, rather large patient would take pity on me and smother me with a pillow to put me out of my misery. He would then promptly throw a huge bathroom sink through the window to make his escape. I don’t think I’ll go that route. I’ll continue to play the part of the responsible father and let my daughter be the two year old. If she’s still acting like that in fifteen years, though, we might have a problem.       

A Plague O’ My House

     I like to think that I have a pretty resilient immune system. I haven’t really been “sick” in a very long time, other than allergies and the like…at least that was the case before I had a daughter. My daughter attends pre-school now, and I have found that pre-school is merely a facade for what is really a system of clandestine laboratories that specialize in producing biological warfare agents.

     It all started innocently enough one morning when getting my daughter ready for school. She had a minor cough (which for her, was as far as it would progress) that really didn't seem like any cause for alarm. That is, until I picked up her, her lunch box, my backpack, her backpack, her milk cup and her bag of pre-school, nap time linens to carry everything (in the world, apparently) to the car so we could load up and make our way to school and work. About the time I was able to hoist myself back into an upright position after being laden like some pack animal, is when she coughed directly into my face from point blank range. I felt the microscopic droplets of poison being ejected from my daughter’s mouth splatter against my eyeballs and into my open mouth. I shook my head in disgust and disbelief and reminded her that we must always cover our mouths when we cough, and she obliged by burying her mouth into the crook of her elbow and uttering a fake cough. “SEE, I DID IT!” Yes, indeed she had.  Oblivious to the fate that loomed before me, we went about our day.

     A chain reaction of biological catastrophes were set in motion that morning which just a few days later would have me laid up with pneumonia. No doubt, this entire scenario was brought to fruition by the cesspool of filth and disease known as pre-school. And, I have my suspicions, that this disease factory is probably propagated either by some covert government agency whose sole purpose is to use children as disease carrying weapons against the adult population in order to make us more susceptible to a hostile alien takeover , or by some unfortunate, third world asylum seeker who sneaked (walked in broad daylight) across the border into my country and who hails from a place where an immunization consists of drinking some bubbling concoction that has been brewed in a rusty cauldron over an open fire next to a pen of goats and chickens, and any disease one might already have is treated by dipping a handful of reeds and straw into a bowl of potion that was stomped into liquid form by some witch doctor’s stinky feet, and then using that handful of now dripping reeds and straw to thwack the afflicted about the face, chest and back until they are adequately covered with enough of the brew to cure their illness and keep everyone they know at least fifteen feet away until the accompanying funk subsides. Regardless of its origin, I had grown rather ill.

     Two year old children do not understand the meaning of “daddy is sick” and life doesn’t pause even when pneumonia is involved. What does happen when pneumonia is involved, though, is that the slightest physical exertion would send me into a fevered fit of coughing and gasping for breath, because every breath feels like you’re inhaling Jello and the desire to not drown makes your body instinctively try to retch it out. Seeing me in such a state of disarray meant nothing but fun for my daughter, who whenever I would collapse onto the couch in a coughing attack(which happened about every three minutes), would climb up onto my lap, get in my face and scream, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DADDY? COVER YOU MOUTH! WHAT’S THAT? I WANNA WATCH STRAWBERRY CUPCAKE! GET UP! I NEED SOME WATER!” My inability to breathe combined with Doc Holiday style coughing and a two year old screaming in my face was more than enough to render me absolutely useless. My condition deteriorated to the point where I was delirious with fever and lack of oxygen. I watched in a half conscious daze as my two year old transformed into a teenager and asked me for the car keys so she could go to work. I sat for hours and watched the same nonsensical episodes of Strawberry Shortcake (whom my daughter calls Strawberry Cupcake) over and over until I thought I was living in Berry Bitty City and my name was Rhubarb Ross. I’m pretty sure at one point when I was nothing but a heap of semi-coherent wreckage, lying limply on the couch and drooling all over myself, my daughter was bashing me in the head with one of her plastic frying pans and laughing hysterically.

     After two weeks of feeling and acting like a one hundred year old man who had smoked for seventy-five of those years and then was forced to chase a toddler through the house every day, I began to heal. The myriad of antibiotics, inhalers, decongestants and codeine laced cough syrup had finally begun to work its Western Medicine magic and I could feel the strength returning to my worn out body a little each day. My daughter still doesn't grasp the concept that I've been ill and that it’s hard for me to pick her up and walk up and down the stairs as she screams in my face, but I muster the strength and do it anyway. Sure, I have to stop at either end of the stairs and lean against the wall to catch my breath, but it doesn't faze her.   

     I could faintly see, over the horizon of my days to come, a hint of fully recovered health returning to me. Then as I picked my daughter up this morning to give her a hug, she coughed in my face again. I figure that I’ll be nothing but a shriveled corpse by early February.