Have you ever seen a 16-month old bow up on a 28-year-old man? Well, I have. Let me give you a little bit of background. It appears that my son has inherited a lot of qualities from me – my obsession with television, my quick temper, and my impatience to name a few. But one thing that he has unquestionably inherited from his father is the crazy eye.
At this point, you might be asking, what’s the crazy eye, Kate? Well, I’ll tell you. The crazy eye is the look that Sutton gives me right before he blows up in an angry rage. Now, I don’t want to make him seem like a violent man, so let me explain that the crazy eye is something that the O’Neal household sees, at most, twice a year. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of nagger…and by bit of, I mean hell of. I nag 24/7, from dawn until dusk, 365 days a year (I like to take leap day off). It’s a talent that I’ve cultivated over the entirety of our relationship, and second to my eye for expensive clothing and weak work ethic, it’s one of my proudest accomplishments. You see, it’s hard to keep a good nag going. Take the trash for instance. You can’t just make a blameless remark that the trash needs to be taken out and be done with it. No. You have to say it twice within 30 minutes with an accusatory twinkle in your eye and then again at the hour mark. After that, you have to start leaving post-its in opportune places, like on the bottle of his depression medicine or the car steering wheel for when he’s almost got up the nerve to leave you. It takes dedication and a total disregard for the feelings of the nagged.
And ninety-nine times out of hundred, the trash ends up in the can, and we move on to the next naggable offense. But that one-hundredth time is where the crazy eye comes out. It’s a look that all at once says, “Stop right there…I’ve had enough… and I wonder what your head would look like stuffed and mounted.” When I see the crazy eye, I know that I have two options: the first is to give up and walk away (which never happens), and the second is the haymaker of every woman’s arsenal…I cry and blame it on hormones.
So the other day, Sutton, Suttie, and I were hanging out in the playroom. We had a Mickey DVD in because, to my one-year-old, Mickey is Nirvana. As we’re watching, Suttie saunters up to the DVD player and starts pushing buttons. So naturally, Sutton firmly tells him “No” and bats his little hand away. And this is the point where sh*t got real. Suttie squares up his shoulders so that he is standing face to face with his dad and bows up at him, as if to say, “Do you want some of this?” And of course, pasted on his formerly angelic face is the crazy eye. At this point, Sutton and I are doing everything we can to keep from laughing because the visual is priceless in its hilarity. But at the same time, we’re trying not to condone this street-fighter behavior. Suddenly, Suttie reaches his hand up slowly toward Sutton's face, and we're thinking "Is he going for the eyes or the throat?" He lets his chubby hand get about an inch from his dad's nose and then he swats it ever-so-gently, as if he was flicking away a fly. Luckily, that was the only damage done that day, because, at that moment, Suttie saw a cracker remnant in the corner of the room. That Wheat Thin may have saved his father’s life; I guess we’ll never know.
So, what’s the moral of this particular post? There isn’t one. I’m just telling you that if we have a play date, my kid’s using prison rules so try not to get shanked.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
A cavity is really the least of our problems
My blog is the only spontaneous thing in my life. Just when you started to be thankful that you no longer had to politely read about Suttie’s first pudding cup and other mundance adventures—BAM! You see a link on Facebook and can’t help but to slide your mouse toward the abyss to see if I’m finally writing about something interesting. Well, the joke’s on you because this latest and greatest post is about Suttie’s first trip to the dentist…not exactly Stephanie Meyer material. Although there was a certain life-sucking quality to the experience, with Suttie shaving off a few more of my golden years.
When we arrived, I had to fill out new patient forms at the front desk. So, I introduced Suttie to the nearby play area and started handing over our insurance information. A minute and twenty-four seconds later, I saw Suttie out of the corner of my eye as he dashed toward a pane of glass that looked into one of the employee’s offices. Before I could get there and yank him away, Suttie had placed two greasy hands and his lips on the window and was in the process of blowing a giant raspberry at the unfortunate soul inside.
After de-suctioning my little bottom-feeder and wiping off, or rather smearing around, his spit with my hand, I escorted him back to the play center, which was shaped like a school bus and had an activity table attached to the front. In the two seconds that it took me to set down my purse and turn back around, Suttie had managed to climb on top of this table, where he was now calmly sitting Indian-style and blocking the toys from the other children. I don’t mean to brag, but I smell a future military strategist because it was one of the most effective blockades I’ve ever seen.
At this point, a woman came out and called his name, giving us a providential exit from a sticky situation. Unfortunately, she only needed him for about five minutes to take a picture. It would have taken one minute, but the first two times that I set him in front of the camera, he started running as soon as his feet hit the ground. For the final attempt, I held him in place by both arms, and the end result was a mug shot in front of a celestial background. They gave us a photo magnet to remember the occasion, and I asked for some drugs to help me forget. The nurse laughed. I didn’t.
So back to the waiting area we went…with lots of little and big eyes following us as the children clutched their toys closer and the moms put down their copies of In Touch Weekly, ready to intervene if a fight broke out. Thankfully, Suttie’s interest was captivated by a large wooden bead maze that he proceeded to carry across the room. I have a feeling that it’s easier to parent when you’re stronger than your child is. I wouldn’t know.
During his trek from one end of the room to the other, Suttie fell approximately eighty-seven times. Every time, the parents and people working at the desk would look down and say, “Oooohhhh…is he okay?” At which point, Suttie would look up at me and give a deep goofy laugh. I told them that he was fine and that his shins were mostly callouses by now.
Finally…and by finally, I mean after ten minutes that seemed like ten years, we were called back to see the dentist. The hygenist was extremely friendly, even when Suttie tried to grab the overhead light and rubbed a slobbery toothbrush down her arm. For the most part, he was fairly reserved, looking curiously around at all of the children who were laying on their backs with their mouths wide open. But when it was his turn to lay horizontal, he got the most hiliarousily horrified look on his face that I had to laugh out loud. With his brow furrowed and his mouth in a kind of petrified “O,” he looked from me to the hygenist to the dentist as if he was trying to figure out a way to take down all three of us at once. When the dentist started to poke and prod at his teeth, he moved on to Plan B, which was to scream bloody murder.
The exam was quick. In fact, I’m pretty sure they rushed through it so that he would stop terrifying the other children, which was fine with me because I’d been ready to go since the beginning of his Bronx cheer in the waiting room. He snagged a new toothbrush and a rubber snake, and I snagged him and made double-time for the parking lot. However, the experience was not without merit because I learned some important things, like space between baby teeth is good because it gives them room to grow and the highest rate of decay comes from putting a baby to bed with a bottle…Oh, and daddies should be in charge of all future dental appointments. I wrote that one down.
When we arrived, I had to fill out new patient forms at the front desk. So, I introduced Suttie to the nearby play area and started handing over our insurance information. A minute and twenty-four seconds later, I saw Suttie out of the corner of my eye as he dashed toward a pane of glass that looked into one of the employee’s offices. Before I could get there and yank him away, Suttie had placed two greasy hands and his lips on the window and was in the process of blowing a giant raspberry at the unfortunate soul inside.
After de-suctioning my little bottom-feeder and wiping off, or rather smearing around, his spit with my hand, I escorted him back to the play center, which was shaped like a school bus and had an activity table attached to the front. In the two seconds that it took me to set down my purse and turn back around, Suttie had managed to climb on top of this table, where he was now calmly sitting Indian-style and blocking the toys from the other children. I don’t mean to brag, but I smell a future military strategist because it was one of the most effective blockades I’ve ever seen.
At this point, a woman came out and called his name, giving us a providential exit from a sticky situation. Unfortunately, she only needed him for about five minutes to take a picture. It would have taken one minute, but the first two times that I set him in front of the camera, he started running as soon as his feet hit the ground. For the final attempt, I held him in place by both arms, and the end result was a mug shot in front of a celestial background. They gave us a photo magnet to remember the occasion, and I asked for some drugs to help me forget. The nurse laughed. I didn’t.
So back to the waiting area we went…with lots of little and big eyes following us as the children clutched their toys closer and the moms put down their copies of In Touch Weekly, ready to intervene if a fight broke out. Thankfully, Suttie’s interest was captivated by a large wooden bead maze that he proceeded to carry across the room. I have a feeling that it’s easier to parent when you’re stronger than your child is. I wouldn’t know.
During his trek from one end of the room to the other, Suttie fell approximately eighty-seven times. Every time, the parents and people working at the desk would look down and say, “Oooohhhh…is he okay?” At which point, Suttie would look up at me and give a deep goofy laugh. I told them that he was fine and that his shins were mostly callouses by now.
Finally…and by finally, I mean after ten minutes that seemed like ten years, we were called back to see the dentist. The hygenist was extremely friendly, even when Suttie tried to grab the overhead light and rubbed a slobbery toothbrush down her arm. For the most part, he was fairly reserved, looking curiously around at all of the children who were laying on their backs with their mouths wide open. But when it was his turn to lay horizontal, he got the most hiliarousily horrified look on his face that I had to laugh out loud. With his brow furrowed and his mouth in a kind of petrified “O,” he looked from me to the hygenist to the dentist as if he was trying to figure out a way to take down all three of us at once. When the dentist started to poke and prod at his teeth, he moved on to Plan B, which was to scream bloody murder.
The exam was quick. In fact, I’m pretty sure they rushed through it so that he would stop terrifying the other children, which was fine with me because I’d been ready to go since the beginning of his Bronx cheer in the waiting room. He snagged a new toothbrush and a rubber snake, and I snagged him and made double-time for the parking lot. However, the experience was not without merit because I learned some important things, like space between baby teeth is good because it gives them room to grow and the highest rate of decay comes from putting a baby to bed with a bottle…Oh, and daddies should be in charge of all future dental appointments. I wrote that one down.
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