Dam It

Concussion. I'll be damned. Oh, sure, I suppose it seemed obvious to you. Blow to the head followed by visual disturbance, headache and vomiting but for some reason... now I feel guily and kinda dumb. You know what else? Apparently "keep an eye on him" is one of those phrases (like "maybe I should see someone") that I understand imperfectly. I was, like, ok! Great! I will keep an eye on him! So at intervals I would go stare at Patrick while he slept and think, "I wonder what I am supposed to see?" Does a concussed person swell? Turn purple? Thrash around? Would I notice if he was slipping into a coma? You should have seen me trying to pry his eyes open so I could shine a flashlight into them.

 

It was one of those nights when I contemplated the fact that every adult is basically a fraud. Nothing makes me more sympathetic to people blundering around running companies or ruling nations than these times when I look around and discover that *I* am the closest thing in the room to an expert on lasers or Rhodesian Ridgebacks or head trauma.

 

Patrick slept for twelve hours and when he woke up the next morning he was normal. Even his lip looked better. So - apart from a little sloshing of the brains - he continues to survive my parenting. He's taken it a little easy this week, though. Just in case.

 

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In other news you can use:

 

an ice dam is a ridge of ice that forms on the edge of a roof and it prevents the melting snow behind it from pouring safely onto the ice-and-dirt beds below. When this happens - in the absence of a miracle - the water seeps under the shingles and given enough snow and just the wrong combination of extreme cold followed by unseasonable warmth; you get water sluicing down the walls of your living room.

 

I tried to explain this phenomenon to my Mid-Atlantic mother and my Pacific Northwest brother and from their murmured condolences I realized that there is something about having to put plastic pitchers on your window sills that is... shameful. Vaguely indecent. Like ice dams are the STD of home ownership.

 

"Really? Water? Pouring from the ceiling? Don't you have insulation? I mean, doesn't the house have some kind of... external barrier? Weren't you protected?"

 

I felt the need to explain that it's not like our house has been hanging out with crack houses and it has never happened before and, really, even well-constructed, energy-thoughtful homes can fall victim to an ice dam when we have THIS MUCH SNOW and it has been THIS COLD and the weather abruptly turns tropical.

 

Seriously, check it out. It's like Spring around here.

    

 

The upside was the fact that it finally got above fifteen degrees and the down was that we developed an unexpected water feature four feet away from our couch.  

 

Steve came up with a temporary fix before there was too much interior damage (he climbed on the roof and swore at the ice until it melted) but it sucked nonetheless. As I fell asleepp I forgot what was going on and thought, ah, the relaxing plinkety-plink of summer rain on a tin roof and then I snapped out of it and realized that my lullaby was actually the steady ka-ching of water damage.

 

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I don't want to jinx anything but I might have found a babysitter. I asked if she could do this weekend or possibly next weekend and she said she could do BOTH. In the past we have always used a nanny service (nanny professionals in St Paul - they're great and we've had wonderful people) but the hour minimums plus the mileage plus the hourly rate have placed them outside our austerity budget range unless it is an emergency. So although preschool affords us the time to occasionally - how did you phrase it in the comments? take a hike? - spend time together during the day; the last time Steve and I went out at night alone was... I don't actually know. It has been at least six months. We did meet some work people before Christmas and that was fun (we went to burlesque show because nothing says Business like tassels and a well-placed feather boa) but just Steve and me and a no-stress evening? It's been forever.

 

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Patrick made a very clever box for his valentines. I continue to find him exceptionally witty.

 

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Somehow that picture reminds me of Edward's latest culinary obsession: lemons. As in, lemons.

 

 

I love his diabolical eyebrow. Love it.

 

 

Comments

[Pam L]

Well, if it walks like a troll and talks like a troll, to use your words.... and the dramatic exit "good-bye" seals that deal. You can always interpret things toward your slant if you are so inclined. If anyone was nonchalant about parenting they wouldn't be writing seeking advice and worrying in public view, they would be shopping or something.

[CaraH]

People are assclowns. I hate it when someone makes me feel like a shitty parent. I can do enough of that on my own. You're great. Ignore anything to the contrary :)

[BethF]

Assclowns..that is fantastic! That is the best new word ever!

[HalynB]

Sheesh...it's practically graven in stone that two year olds will attempt some kind of dramatic escape attempt. I have two kids who are five years apart and have dramatically different personalities and both made escape attempts in the second year. One kid got a concussion at five after somehow managing to trip over his feet and fall BACKWARDS while hurrying to the bus stop-he still has a scar from that, and he's sixteen now. The other gave herself a black eye at seven. She was lying on the couch, holding the cat over her head when the cat decided he didn't want to be held that way anymore, he swiped at her, she dropped him and his head smacked her face. I'm not sorry to report that I laughed at her. My point is, kids are accident prone, and I don't care how much you hover and worry over them, they will find a way to make you look negectful...you may as well laugh over it later.

[Katelyn]

I didn't think concussion. And I think you are a fabulous parent. Things of that nature are perfectly amusing after the fact. I look at it as a laugh or cry situation.

My story addition. ... appearances deceiving and such ...
My younger brother had an innocent playground accident in 1st grade that resulted in a very dramatic black eye. A couple days later while playing/wrestling around in the living room floor his own knee connected with the non-black eye. Needless to say non-black no more. Poor kid looked like he'd been beaten with half his face terribly bruised. We got a few sideways looks in the grocery store until the bruising faded.

Nothing anyone could have done to prevent it except maybe surround him in bubble wrap and thats no way to go through childhood.

Carry on Julia. You are doing just fine!

[Laura K.]

Glad Patrick is okay! He MUST be, if he's able to make fabulous Valentine boxes like that! :)

Matthew has the same diabolical eyebrow as Edward. It's fun.

I need to catch up on your blog more often - Your kids are getting so big!

[Ev]

Love your blog, first time commenter. I read blogs on my phone while being my kids' slave/bad parent as I stay in their room while they fall asleep. Usually give up commenting due to the stupid autocorrect function. Wanted to tell you that when I was 8 yo, I jumped off the edge of the bathtub, slipped and knocked myself unconscious. My parents did not take me to the hospital, they just put me in bed and when I came to, yelled at me for jumping. I grew up to be reasonable successful, am now a surgeon. With children of my own, and almost as clueless as my own parents about keeping them safe. Oh come on, I am a doctor for adults. Kid stuff is a mystery to me.

[Jan]

Concussion seemed an obvious possibility to me. (I do say this as a 57-year-old who skidded on a throw rug last week that didn't have a slip pad underneath, fell on my brow bone, have a black eye and had to have a CAT scan. Happily, nothing amiss.) In therapy for anxiety, I was urged to come up with measures to avoid, mitigate or deal with the things that made me most anxious. Many of your (Julia's) anxieties are around worst case scenarios happening with your children, and you've skated with some of them (Caroline crawling out onto the roof, Patrick's possibly having had serious illnesses). You and we have discussed the lines between overprotective and reasonably cautious for a number of activities. For accidents and illness, if you don't already have some, why don't you get and read some handbooks? (Forgive me if you have had one at home already -- you probably do -- it was only the concussion that made me broach this.) Yes, you can scare yourself, and you shouldn't substitute this information for medical advice and help, but being armed with more information might help. Here are two I found.

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Parents-Guide-Illnesses-Accidents/dp/1439152918
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/symptom-books/childhood-symptoms-every-parent-s-guide-to-childhood-illnesses.htm

[Jan]

p.s not "avoid" things that made me anxious from happening, but "prevent" them from happening.

[Jan]

Good section on trauma.
http://www.amazon.com/Parents-Guide-Medical-Emergencies-First/dp/0895297361
Enough -- see that another snow storm passed through Minnesota yesterday. We're facing five inches in Philadelphia -- piddling, but enough of that, too!

[Dead Bug]

Ooooo! Careful with the lemons! Olivia loved them straight, like Edward, and when we took her in for her three-year dental appointment, the dentist said there was a noticeable degredation of her enamel and did she have any strange food habits, like sucking on lemons?

[Alison]

Concussion didn't even occur to me. For what my endorsement as fellow fallible parent is worth.

That box is super-fabulous.

And I LOVE your blog.

[Frank Casher]

I'm so envious of all the ice that you're getting, guys! Too bad it doesn't snow here in Miami. It happened once, back in 1977, but I wasn't alive yet that time. I've raked snow off roofs before, in the company of my brother when I stayed at his house in New York last year, but of course I want to do it in my own roofing.