It’s December, and my son’s desire to kill my grass with hot urine has not waned. We’re smack dab in the middle of an unusual cold spell in northwest Oregon which, despite my assumption to the contrary, has absolutely no bearing on the fact that my preschool boys insist on using our backyard as a litter box. After all, it’s not like you can stow your public urination skills with the patio furniture for the winter, right? Yeah; I don’t know what I was thinking.
I’m currently conducting a scientific experiment to see whether there’s a temperature too low for outdoor urination, and I’m beginning to hypothesize that little boy penises have some sort of special insulation which make them impervious to the cold; if I’m wrong, then I’m not sure why they’re so confident that their boy parts won’t freeze solid and fall off.
In news related to frozen pensises, I put up a blog post yesterday about Christmas cake that unintentionally featured my son wearing a prominent forehead band-aid.
Honestly, facial band-aids are so common around my house, I didn’t think to mention it. In fact, I stopped seeing that band-aid days ago, which also explains how I can live with all of my Christmas gifts from last year still piled high on my bedroom dresser. The band-aid recalled itself to my memory when, bless your kind hearts, I received several messages wondering what happened to my poor kid. I forget that there’s a whole big world outside of my house and my blog where children who sport forehead band-aids are the exception and not the norm.
For the soft-hearted among you, here’s our story:
A few days ago, Cai zipped out the back door, as is his habit, to take a quick turn at the lovely, green, clover-and-dandelion-filled urinal we grew for them, and Greg, for reasons that are clear to neither of us, told Cai’s brother to close the back door.
Well, of course, the exact moment that Cael, with terrific power and outstanding enthusiasm, flung the door closed was the same one that Cai came tripping through the doorway, eyes focused on tucking his frozen bits down while jump-pulling up his drawers. He wasn’t watching the door flying toward his face. His brother wasn’t watching the door missile, either. So the full force of the corner of that door hit him square in the forehead.
Or, for the more mathematically-inclined among you:
5-year-old boy-child
+
5-year-old twin brother
+
we have doors
=
forehead band-aids
Now, as dads around the universe know, these things only happen when their wives are away. Murphy’s Law stands at the front door, barring the mama from re-entering the house until immediately after the child’s wailing builds to sonic boom level. It’s extremely important to Murphy that dads look utterly incompetent, no matter how well the rest of the time went. (As an aside, I might recommend that Murphy seek a bit of counseling.)
So of course I walked into the house, back from my trip to the grocery store, right as the Cai Cai Pain-Indication Siren Wail hit ear-splitting volume. And I looked straight at Greg and said, “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BABY?!”
And Greg said, “I JUST ASKED CAEL TO CLOSE THE BACK DOOR! It hit Cai in the head.”
And I said, “What were you thinking?? We don’t close doors around here! WE WERE ALL BORN IN A BARN! Geez!”
And then Cai let me hold him, and I felt better he felt better.
And then I told Greg I was sorry for yelling. And then I told my preadolescent, geez-yelling son that I shouldn’t’ve said GEEZ at Dad. It was rude of me. It was disrespectful. It’s never OK, even when we’re mad, to treat the people we love with disdain. Blah blah blah. And then I shook my fist at Murphy for being so dramatic all the time. In short, it was a rough five minutes.
Here we are, a few days later. The band-aid is off, which I think is actually worse. I mean, the brunt force trauma / third eye look is just SO last year.
(I do all my best portrait work in the laundry room. Someone tell me that’s not weird.)
Cai clearly remains traumatized by the incident.
And the only question I have left is this:
If his face freezes like this,
should I be worried?
15 responses to “Band-aid? What band-aid?”
[…] may recall that time last week when my son used his brother’s face as a door stop and I might’ve lost my cool for the teensiest, tiniest bit of […]
I, too, was transfixed by the wall ‘o laundry. I need a bigger laundry room!!
Thanks, y’all!
I thought my son was the only one who made that face. I was clearly wrong.
I read this to my husband. He is still laughing!!! I hope Denise see’s this blog. She will love your basket. And being she and her little grandson lives in the Yukon, she will be thrilled to know the little boy parts will not freeze and fall off if he decides to do the pee thing outside 🙂
Oh my goodness, I almost fell over seeing that last picture.
Clearly traumatized.
Hazel was lucky to observe one of her four yr old neighbors drop trou and spray the leaf pile this fall. Needless to say, that ended the leaf pile jumping. His mother was horrified, as this was in the front yard, rather than the approved back yard, but Hazel was nonplussed, having already learned her anatomy from another friend who frequents his front yard as well. It’s all good… until they hit the playground next year.
LOL
Hypothetically speaking, I might have a next-door neighbor whose son is in my oldest daughter’s class who dropped trou on the playground their first day of kindergarten and watered a tree. Or I might not; I wouldn’t want to give another person’s personal story away. 😉
It sounds like you (or others) are doing an excellent job of exposing Hazel to lots of different kinds of people (teehee).
I am SUPER jealous of that laundry room! I’m moving in. (Can I bring my family too? You wouldn’t notice 5 more, would you?)
And frozen penises, huh? Oi…my boys are still so little. I’ve got a lot to look forward to, huh?
There’s always room for 5 more, Elizabeth. (It’s that kind of thinking that got us into this mess. ;))
Best line of the entry today “And I said, “What were you thinking?? We don’t close doors around here! WE WERE ALL BORN IN A BARN! Geez!”!”
Plus, I love the final question! Perhaps boy parts will also finally freeze when his face freezes like that which would explain the expression to anyone who wonders! lol
Plus, I agree, sometimes a bandaid looks more lovely than the injury so camouflaged.
And, Angela ^ I am so with you there, hon! about the laundry baskets! I’m impressed Beth’s match and have cubby holes. As a bonus, they also appear unbroken!
Ha! My laundry baskets only appear unbroken because I didn’t photograph those that our old golden retriever chewed to bits. I have to keep those up high because the edges are so jagged, they can cause injury to children. True story! 😀 This is my life.
Blah Blah Blah. I retained nothing of this blog today as I was mesmerized by the laundry baskets! I was just so thrilled to see someone else who had sooooo many baskets in their laundry room! Yeah – I’m not a freak! (Okay, maybe I am but I have friends!) 7 family members take a lot of baskets. And then you need extra ones for hauling and even more for just sitting around while those, who shall remain nameless (my husband), “get around” to putting their clothes away.
“7 family members take a lot of baskets.”
Yes. Yes, they do!
Angela, the laundry baskets will be featured in an upcoming post due to the extraordinary amount of questions I’ve had about them since posting this. But there is a post from a year ago that features the laundry room in all its glory. https://bethwoolsey.com/2011/01/short-stuff/ Scroll down to the comments for Greg’s instructions on how to build our laundry basket grid.
This system is created specifically to enable lazypants people like your husband (and me) who never quite seem to put laundry away. It bypasses the entire notion of hauling clothes around the house. Rock on!