Q: What's the difference between a Northern fairytale and a
Southern fairytale?
A: A Northern fairytale begins "Once upon a time..."; a Southern fairytale begins "Y'all ain't gonna believe this
shit..."So here I sits, at 3:37 a.m. CST, eating eggs covered in The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce with a chocolate chip muffin on the side and some skim milk washing it all down. Normally, my lovelies, I near-despise eggs, even those cooked to a fluffy scrambled heavenliness a la my ma's infamous recipe. On occasion, though, I do gets a pireful hankerin' fer tha thangs, and tonight just so happens to be one of those times. The baby sits to my left, easily observed through the french doors of my office/dining room, watching The Brave Little Toaster with a look of amusement mingled with bliss (the same exact look he's worn the 300 other times that he has taken said flick in). We are fresh offa a 1 a.m. visit to the E.R. *sigh* and he is on a sugar high that promises to last until 4:30 or so....
Was having a great time with the hubby *wink-wink* around midnight when the phone rings. I moan "Ignore it" and we both do until we hear the semi-frantic voice of mom-in-law beseeching us to pick the phone up and baby whimpering in the background. This is very uncharacteristic; my mother-in-law is never frantic and most usually quite capable in all situations. Cursing and fumbling to find the cordless ensues and by the time it's found, she has hung up. When I call back, she tells me that my 20-month-old normally happy baby awakened her with screaming and was on fire with a 104.5-degree temp. She chucked him in the tub and I yanked on the nearest matching ensemble. Hubby has to work today and someone has to stay with the other two children, so I vote myself out the door and into the car to retrieve the young master.
Poor little thing. He is Mister Go Lucky normally, but was crying forlornly at the mere mention of his name. The bath seems to assuage his fever the tiniest bit and I give him some children's ibuprofen on the fly. He scribbles jaggedly and angrily on his MagnaDoodle while riding to the hospital. Once there, the whole process goes rather swimmingly, which is no small feat for the hospital that we loosely refer to as "Medical Shitsville". We are ushered in straight away (to my utter amazement) and seen within 15 minutes. HO-LEE SHEE-YUT. Zoinks, Batman!
End result is strep throat and he is given two cups of juice while awaiting an antibiotic shot.
He muttered "ohno,ohno,ohno" the entire walk back to the room we were assigned, so on some level methinks he knowed it was coming....he is highly intelligent and we can't put much past him.
Keeping in mind that he was not feeling too snazzy to begin with and had already been subjected to the whole icky rectal temp thing twice, the shot was not well-received and he subsequently scored two yummy popsicles after the nurses got done cooing over him. He is a real beauty, what can I say? The popsicles were not quite enough to temper the situation, so as he sat on my lap he touched my lips repeatedly and said "lalala". This means he wants songs to fill the moment, a throwback to when I would singsong "La la la, connect the dots" while he was an infant.
How can I possibly refuse this feverish little moppet, his curls sticky with sweat, his eyelashes matted from tears? I break into the standards, the repertoire of no-fails that have been honed to perfection by nearly 9 (GOD! Has it been that long?) years of mommydom...
After the requisite 15-minute post-injection observation period and handing off of the prescription, we are free to go and he is nearly a new man, fussing with his blanky on the way to the car.
All the way home he babbles and chatters at me in his loose baby-cum-toddler lingo. He is enchanted by the clear night and all the bright-shinies that it contains. As we hit the old country roads, he is delighted to play peepeye (translated as "peekaboo" for all northeners and foreigners) with the moon, which is low-slung and bright white. He keeps exclaiming "WOOK!" to me while pointing at it bobbing to and fro within the trees. This moment reminds me....
One night on the drive home, my daughter (then 2-and-a-half) turned to me and said excitedly, "Look mommy, the moon is following us. It must like me." This was followed by a few moments of silence and then she turned to ask, "Mommy, can the moon come home wif us?" "I dunno, sweetie, you'll have to ask the moon if it wants to."
She asked me to roll down the window, which I did, then she politely asked, "Moon, would you like to come home wif me? I would like you to." The moon followed us and she felt very special to have garnered its' attention.
And here was my boy, sugar-loaded and fascinated with the moon. And here was me, caught between two moments in time and utterly fascinated by it all.
And oh yeah, I am eating eggs. The end.
