For a few years in my childhood, we lived next door to a family of five. The mother was Indonesian, the father was American, the three kids were a 50-50 mix of the two. The children, whom I immediately befriended the day they moved in, told me that their mother learned English by watching Sesame Street.
This made for some interesting conversations.
Most of the time, the kids were around to translate. But one time, the mother came over to ask my mom a question that she didn’t want her kids to hear.
It went like this:
Indonesian Mom: You take a kids to cannibal?
My Mom: (looking shocked) What?
IM: You take a kids? To cannibal?
Mom: Um, what?
IM: Da cannibal. You kids. Dis weekend?
Mom: Andrea, come here. Tell her, “What?”
Me: What’s that you said?
IM: You mom take you a cannibal? Dis weekend? Ride-a-ride?
Me: Where is Janice? She can tell me what you want.
IM: No, no. No Janice. You ride-a-ride? You know, cannibal. (Making large circular motions with her arms).
Me: Mom, I think she wants you to take us to a cannibal that throws knives. But no, thanks.
Mom: (To IM) A knife throwing cannibal?
IM: NO! CA-NI-BAL.
Mom: OH! You mean a cannon ball? The one on main base? (We were military, of course.)
IM: NO! CA-NI-BAL. Kids. Da cannibal. Ride-a-ride.
Mom: Oh, no thank you. (closes the door in exasperation).
Turns out, she was planning to take her kids to the carnival as a surprise, and wanted to know if we’d like to tag along.
Speaking of which, we took the kids to the traveling carnival this weekend, and Blythe ride-a-ride, for the very first time. In fact, both kids rode LOTS of rides. 
Shouldn’t she be smiling?
I much preferred the carnival over a knife-wielding cannibal, I can tell you.
Category: Kids
The sickness has been making its rounds at our house, leaving one after the other of us hacking, feverish, puking or squirting. Sometimes one of us is unfortunate enough to have all at once.
Blythe, with her allergies, is impossible to medicate because pretty much every medication ever made has some corn-infused thing in it. That means she can’t have Imodium A-D for her diarrhea, Tylenol or Motrin for her fever, or any kind of cold-symptom relief.
The result: Diaper rash. Oh, and diaper rash creams have corn, too.
I made an executive decision during Blythe’s bout of stomach flu, and dosed her with Infant Motrin (with a shot of Zyrtec on the side) for her high fever several days in a row. She was miserable, what was I supposed to do? I’d given her the combo in the past and she seemed to handle it well. Apparently, though, THAT much corn starch built up in her system and we can’t get it out.
My poor baby is now allergic to her own pee and poop. We’ve dealt with the poop thing before, but the pee is a whole new ball game. Her ass is on FIRE, and it hurts so much when she pees that she’s started holding her urine for hours at a time. Oh, and that medication to help with burning pee? One word: corn. Are you sensing a pattern here?
We had to take a urine sample to the lab to rule out a urinary tract infection, and it took three hours, 16 ounces of milk, 4 ounces of diluted juice and 3 ounces of water before she’d pee. Seriously, folks.
So with all that going on, I decided to go ahead and get her potty trained. I mean, the more she pees in a diaper, the more rash she gets. Every drop of pee or smear of poop that touches her skin leaves hives and a burning rash in its wake. It’s been nearly two weeks now, and I can’t even give her anything for pain.
Let me say, trying to potty train a 1-year old is interesting. She’s completely aware of when she has to pee now, because of the whole “pee-pee is on fire” thing, which helps. She’s getting better at letting me know she has to go BEFORE the pee is running down her leg (and yes her legs will puff up too, but I’ve gotten pretty quick at getting her butt in the sink*), but poop is another story. I’m just grateful the diarrhea phase of illness is over, because it’s hard enough to scrape it out of her pants, as-is.
We spent our long weekend in the living room, watching movie after movie, pushing fluids and sitting on the potty. More than once I’ve seen foot-shaped pee puddles across the floor. It’s all good though, because at least we’re going through this BEFORE we replace the flooring in a few months. Every cloud has a silver lining, no?
* If you happen to stop by any time soon, I recommend you NOT lick our bathroom sink.
It’s amazing to me how very different my two daughters are. Their personalities, their likes and dislikes, the way they handle any given situation.
Blythe is an entertainer. All eyes on her, please, and applause when appropriate. 
Wherever we go, people are drawn to her. She’s just got this charismatic magnetism that makes it impossible for people to be around her and not smile. She’s also tough as nails. If she’s crying, there’s a damn good reason.
Alison is a quiet observer. She thinks deeply and doesn’t like attention. Her emotions are always worn on her sleeve, like it or not, and she’s incredibly sensitive. 
Once she’s been around people several dozen times, she’ll start to open up. As long as they haven’t done anything loud or pushy or mean, or looked at her cross-eyed, that is.
Lately, though, she’s been coming out of her shell more often, and a little quicker.
She’s learning from her little sister that a tiny bit of attention has never killed anyone. 
Or has it?
Lately I’ve been lying in bed at night, thinking about universal balance. You know: karma, yin and yang, give and receive, having your beautiful cake and not being able to eat it, too.
It led me to wonder, when God grants a prayer request, does He also scribble down a little IOU? It’s funny to think of Him standing there, holding a stack of invoices, but it’s a little scary too – you never know exactly what the cost is, or when it’s due. I mean, when is your debt really paid? It’s not like He sends a statement.
Back when we were trying to get pregnant with what turned out to be Blythe, I would take my monthly pregnancy test (or five) (who am I kidding, I mean 10) (ish) and while waiting the requisite 4 minutes, I’d say “Please let it be positive this time. Please, God, just this once”. And then it would be negative and I’d start again the next month with the begging. God was probably tired of hearing from me.
After a year or so, we took a little break and wouldn’t you know, one day a few months later, a burrito sounded damn good and I wolfed it down even though I’ve always thought, my whole life through, that burritos were disgusting, and BAM. Positive pregnancy test. No negotiations required.
I begged God or the Universe, or who ever else was listening, to let the baby be in a good spot in my deformed uterus. Because, otherwise, the chance of miscarriage was something like 85% and who bets on those odds? Our relief at her good uterine placement was short lived when, at 9 weeks, during one of my many daily bathroom visits, I discovered copious amounts of blood gushing from the worst possible place for a pregnant woman.
Have you ever seen a mother beg for her child’s life? It’s not pretty. It involves a lot of blubbering and tears and even snot bubbles, and if you think I might have offered up every thing we possess to the Keeper of the Universe if this child could live, you’d be spot on. We had to wait through the entire weekend, me on bed rest and continuing my mental begging, before getting to see whether the baby made it.
When I saw not only a little peanut in my uterus but the flashing light that indicated a heart beat, I just knew this baby was going to make it the whole nine yards, and I quit my begging. My request had been granted and I didn’t want anyone changing their mind based on the fact that I was annoying.
Over the past few months I picked up my old habit where I left off, asking God and the Universe to let Blythe grow out of her food allergies. It’s not such a big request, is it? It’s all I’m asking for, not a fancy new car or world peace or for my adult acne to finally go away, because, really, don’t you think someone in their 30’s should be able to focus on their wrinkles instead?
But then, about a month ago, after I’d gotten all cocky about how I had this thing down pat, what with Blythe going months now without a reaction, we got a rude awakening. She picked up a girl scout cookie her sister accidentally left within her reach. Not only did she put it in her mouth, she ate the entire thing.
I could blame the girl scouts for putting high fructose corn syrup in their cookies, myself for keeping a stash of them, my husband for finding the stash, Alison for leaving the cookie out, Blythe for eating it. But you know, sometimes things are just inevitable. No matter how hard you try, sometimes mistakes happen. You can look back on that one thing, that catapult, if you will, and regret it or relive it the rest of your life, but you can’t ever change it.
Every day for 5 weeks now, Blythe has been struggling. One corn-laden cookie knocked her immune system down and now she’s not only hyper-sensitive to anything corn, she developed a NEW allergy, to soy. Anyone who comes around has to wash their hands and face before touching or kissing her. Jeremy has to take a shower and change his clothes before he’s allowed anywhere near her, because she has a reaction from particles he accumulates on his clothes and skin from animal feed and the like. For Blythe, these allergies went from manageable to out of freaking control.
Being anal retentive and a bit dramatic, I spent a few days thinking, “WHAT NOW? We may as well order ourselves a bubble and put her in it”. I felt like we were up against something I couldn’t see, couldn’t predict, couldn’t fix, all while my baby girl suffered and whimpered her way through her days and nights.
But, you know, looking at this as the debt we owe in exchange for her survival, it doesn’t look so bad. It’s what has changed my attitude from one of defeat to one of proactivity. I’ll take a sweet, loving, thoughtful, happy little girl who happens to be extremely food allergic over a clump of bloody cells in my toilet, every time.
Oh and God, if you’re listening? I think you can mark that invoice “PAID”.
Last night was rough. Alison was up twice, Blythe was up crying. I broke my “new” rule to not go to her at night (except when she’s sick) because for the first time, she was crying for “Da-Da” instead of just plain old crying.
My heart broke a little, thinking of her sitting in there crying for someone who wasn’t allowed to come. When I picked her up she groped me, asking for a “ba-ba”. It wasn’t there because, hello, girlfriend, we’re giving those things up.
And there’s no way I’m going back to the days nights when she would wake up every 3 or 4 hours wanting a bottle. It’s the whole reason the no-going-in rule is in place – Mommy likes sleep.
Blythe let me rock her, her head on my chest and her hands tucked up between us. Despite the fact that she is no longer hyperactive due to her corn allergy, she’s still not one to be cuddled. In those moments, I didn’t care if going in to her set us back for a few nights. I was holding my baby girl in my arms, and there was no other place either one of us wanted to be.
As we rocked in the quiet darkness, her soft hair tickling my chin, I thought about the fact that in a few short days, she will turn 18 months old. Where on earth has that time gone? So many days I robotically move from sunrise to sunset, that the details of our lives blur together.
Gone are the baby days. She is my last, and it gets harder and harder to deny that she is growing up.
Just before she drifted off to sleep in my arms, she whispered, “Shhhh! I sleepin'”.
I squeezed her a little tighter, my baby who is suddenly a little girl.
