March 31, 2005 @ 10:35 am | Filed under: Special Needs Children, Wonderboy
I’m hijacking another post from my husband’s blog. It’s too good not to share.
Expertise, by Scott
So it’s a gorgeous day today, sunny, few clouds, tiny breeze now and then. I’m hanging out with Top Management and The Boy as she does a little bit of gardening out front and he practices going in a semi-circle, holding onto my knee as I sit on the front steps. He’s occasionally tempted to let go and see how far he can get but prudence is currently the better part of his valor. Considering the fact that just six months ago they weren’t sure he’d ever walk, I cut him a bit o’ slack.
We’re chatting and it’s extremely pleasant and then I look down and notice something odd I didn’t THINK I’d noticed before but with me who knows? And as is my oh so formal wont, I blurt, “What the hell?”
Top Management turns around and we both look at this puddle on the sidewalk which didn’t seem to have been there before. And it’s bright and sunny and there are no other puddles around. And obviously you’re all picking up on this much faster than we did. But we’re good in an emergency. Trust me, we are. Well, she is. I’m useless. What a shock.
So we notice that The Boy has a matching wet spot on his pants. I say, “Jeez, lady, when’s the last time you changed his diaper?” Which, yes, conveniently ignored for the moment the fact that nothing had stopped ME from personally changing his diaper.
I lift him up and his pants immediately fall and get stuck on his shoes. Turns out the diaper dropped down with the pants. Which means that, when his shirt rides up a little bit, his winky gets its first look at the world.
Top Management and I both burst out laughing, because she believes in solidarity and at a time like that it’s rude to let your husband be the only one with a thirteen-year-old’s mentality. Besides, it’s really funny when a baby’s winky suddenly pokes out in public. That’s not opinion. That’s simple fact.
The Boy’s amused, of course, because he’s being held up in the air and both Mom and Dad are making a big fuss about…well, SOMEthing, how’s he supposed to know what? So as usual, he assumes it’s about him. Which I guess it was, sort of. Or at least parts of him. Part of him. A little part.
Just then a breeze whips up. And the expression on The Boy’s face changes. Instantly. What had been mild amusement turns into a look of “What the heck is THAT?” as the wind tickles parts previously unused to any kind of weather conditions whatsoever. He turns to look at each of us, eyes wide, clearly thinking, “Seriously, what IS that? Do you know? Do you? Do you? You do? You DO? How long have you known about this? And what can I possibly do to get that going again?”
Howling with laughter, and much to The Boy’s disgruntlement, we head into the house to get him a new diaper and a change of clothes. And Top Management realizes that the neurosurgeon The Boy had seen earlier had taken off the kid’s diaper in order to look at his Unusually Protruding Tailbone (which, yes, needs to be snipped off) and had apparently not done a terrific job of redoing the diaper’s tape.
Which kind of gives you pause. This is one of the top pediatric brain surgeons in the world. Yet he seems unable to master the intricacies of Huggies. Are you sure this is the guy you want poking around your kid’s horned ventricles?
Turns out he indeed is. And I guess it just goes to show that we’ve all got our little areas of special expertise. For some of us it’s fixing toddler brains. For others it’s…well, for my part, I haven’t quite gotten that one sorted out just yet. But I’ve a feeling it’s going to be more along the lines of knowing how to secure a diaper properly rather than slicing and dicing someone’s innards with precision. Hey, it takes all kinds.
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Too funny. I can definitely relate with my nearly 3 year old Logan. And just wait, the things boys think about are so different from my girls! I asked him last weekend, “Logan, what are you doing?” He replied, “I not doing anysomething.”
Posted on April 12th, 2005 at 12:13 pm