BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

So here’s the thing… Our kid has an addiction. It’s pretty severe, and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it.  No amount of threatening to take her Nintendo DS away, or confining her to her room has any effect whatsoever. We’ve considered therapy, but it seems our insurance won’t cover it. Yes… It’s that horrible addiction.

Our child is a fruitaholic.

Now, in order to feed the child’s habit, I am forced to make frequent trips to the local supermarket. You see, she goes through fresh fruit faster than it can… well… become not fresh.

Bunch of bananas? Gone. Bag of apples? Gone. Bag of oranges? Gone… And right on down the line. In fact, up until recently the only thing of a fruit orientation I have been able to bring home that didn’t immediately disappear is grapefruit. As it happens, I love grapefruit. Problem is, now the kid does too. My only saving grace at this point is she likes it supremed (meaning, the bitter, tough, membrane removed,) just like I do, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to accomplish that just yet. Of course, that just means I get stuck doing it for her…

But, let’s not get too far off track. This is, after all, a story about E K.

You see, since the offspring goes through fruit faster than a bad case of blight, we tend to keep canned fruit around as well. Of course, being the health conscious folks we are, we go for the no sugar added, packed in natural juices sort of canned fruit. It still isn’t as good as fresh fruit, but it’s a damn sight better than all that heavy syrup or aspartame.

And so, this brings us around to E K.

It had only been about 24 hours since my “Day Of Retribution” for the “Gimme Mai Shooz” blog entry. I was now using a walker to hold myself up in my three-fourths body cast, while dragging an IV stand around with me, and having my dressings changed hourly.  Obviously, I wasn’t moving very fast. Unfortunately, the offspring was experiencing one of her sudden needs for fruit, and the little monkey had already consumed all of the fresh produce in the house. (On a side note, I wish I had her metabolism. I drink a cup of black coffee and put on 3 pounds. She eats a bag of oranges and it’s all good. *sigh* )

But, I digress again…

The kid needed some fruit and though we were all out of fresh, we had some canned stuff in the cabinet. Since my nurse, Brunhilda, had already left for the day, I had no one to help me situate all the tubes and wires from the life support equipment attached to my walker, so I was moving exceptionally slow. In an uncharacteristic fit of pity, E K told me she would take care of it, and then darted off to the kitchen.

Well, you know how E K is in the kitchen. I’ve told you all before… So, suffice it to say, I just continued shuffling my way through the house in that direction. Something in the back of my head told me that it was the right thing to do.

Since turtles were lumbering past me like little green, hardtop Porche 911’s , it took me a while to get to the doorway. I wasn’t really surprised when I scooted around the corner to find E K  struggling with a can of fruit. The same can of fruit she had been struggling with for several minutes, and the can was apparently winning.

“What’s the hold up?” I asked. “The offspring is in there eating the Ficus.”

E K shot me one of those looks that was a mix of, “help me, it’s not my fault, shut up, damn you, my hero, help me, if you say anything I’ll kick that walker right out from under you and dance on your head!, help me dammit!, go away dammit! Gaaahahhhhahahhhh!!!“.

Yeah, I know… That’s an awful lot to get from a single glance, but she can be pretty damned expressive when she wants to be. I think it’s the red hair and the blue eyes that do it.

I didn’t say anything, lest I end up back in the hospital. I simply shuffled over to the island and watched as she went back to struggling with a can of sliced pears and a manual can opener. After several more languid moments of The Evil One attempting to massacre the top of the tin receptacle she let out a frustrated sigh, plonked the can opener down on the counter, then slid the can over to me. She stuttered, “I… well… I did…” Then she pointed at the can and let out another exasperated huff.

I looked at the can.

Then I looked at her.

Then I looked at the can.

Then I looked at her.

She stared at me with the whole, “Don’t make me kill you” expression on her face. Then, just to be certain I understood, she said, “Don’t make me kill you.”

Balancing myself with the walker, I reached out, picked up the can, then slipped my finger through the pull tab on top and peeled the lid open. Yeah… You read that correctly. E K was trying to open a pull tab can with a can opener. In her defense it had been a long day, and she had a lot of things going on that were keeping her a bit distracted in the brainpan. Still… it was a pull tab can and she was gouging the living hell out of it with a can opener. There was humor there. Bizarre, laugh out loud humor.

But, I knew better. I didn’t laugh out loud. No, I was good. For a few seconds anyway. You see, as I sat the can back on counter I looked at her and said, “You know, this is blog material, right?”

She smirked, then began filling a bowl for the offspring. That was an imperative since the child was about to eat all of our house plants. As she spooned sliced pears into a dish she mumbled, “That’s just mean.”

“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “Maybe… But you have to admit, it’s funny.”

“No, it’s just mean,” she replied, then added, “But nowhere near as mean as I’m going to be if you blog about this…”

I have Brunhilda’s number on speed dial, and the medical supply place is going to leave the life support equipment here on sort of a semi-permanent rental basis, just in case.

I wonder if they have free Wi-Fi at the hospital?

More to come…

Murv

I have to wonder why when speaking to children we adults endeavor to complicate explanations with inferences and allusions, instead of just coming right out and saying what we mean. You know, stuff like the whole “Well… There are birds and there are bees, and then there are flowers…“

I suppose it may have to do with helping them develop deductive reasoning skills. The whole putting two and two together sort of thing. Problem is, it seems kids are way ahead of us on some of this, and they are completely unabashed in their explanations.

Yeah, this is another instance of from the mouths of… Just like the other day when my kid yelled out, “Mommy gave you a big pussy?!” (If you are new here, it’s not as bad as it sounds – see blog post What did you say?)

Similarly, this incident occurred during our morning walk while the munchkin’ was still on spring vacation. We were following the same route we had a day or so before, and on that recent walk we had seen a cat sitting on a porch. I know, no big deal. It’s not like we don’t have cats ourselves, however, this seemed to fascinate the kid since she thought the cat was “really cute.”

Anyway, the topic of conversation that morning was “whether or not that cat would be sitting on the porch again.” As it turned out, it was. Well, actually, it was sitting in front of the porch instead of on it, but the point is it was there again. Or still there for all I know, but I digress…

Once we saw the cat and the kid oohed and ahhed, we continued on our way. We’d only traveled a quarter of a block when the short person asked, “Daddy. Is that cat a boy or a girl?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I replied. “It’s kind of hard to tell at a distance when it isn’t a Calico.”

Now granted, I didn’t give her any manner of convoluted explanation, and the reality is I wouldn’t be able to tell the gender of the feline unless I went over and grabbed it up by the tail – or, if it happened to elect to put its yarbles – or lack thereof – on display as cats will sometimes do. But, my kid was undaunted. She figured that if I couldn’t figure it out, then she would venture her own theory.

“Oh… Yeah…” she mused. After a very brief pause she announced, “Maybe we could tell like you do with dogs.”

Curious, I asked, “How’s that?”

“You wait for them to pee. If it’s a boy he will lift his leg. If it’s a girl, she just looks like she’s pooping.”

Direct. To the point. And, near as I can figure, pretty damn accurate, at least where dogs are concerned.

I think I’ll take a lesson from the offspring in this case. Next time someone asks me a question – especially one I don’t really want to answer – I’ll just say, “You have to wait for them to pee…“

More to come…

Murv