Confession: My kids are 'those' kids!

Confession: My kids are ‘those’ kids!

I’m a teacher. As such, I am hyper-aware of how adults perceive other peoples’ children. Generally, we all see them the same way we view other peoples’ dogs; cute from a distance, entrancing as an abstract idea but rather smelly, annoying and messy up close.

Because I’m aware of this, I try very hard to have my children be polite, only-slightly-annoying and somewhat-clean at all times. This doesn’t always work. In fact, it doesn’t work with distressing regularity. I often—more often than I care to admit at the moment—find myself thinking, ‘oh, god! I’m one of THOSE parents…my kids are THOSE kids! Ahhh!!!” You’ll see what I mean.

Jennifer remains my mini-me...spunk, stubborness, sass and all. For example, the other day she put a bead up her nose.

Yes, you read that correctly. I was trying to get dressed to go on a mommy-shopping trip to Reno (this was the weekend before Christmas and all of the mommies had to 'help Santa'). 10 minutes before my girlfriend and her husband (dumb schmuck actually thought it'd be FUN to drive 4 harried mommies to Reno. He has since revised his opinion.) arrived, Jen came in and told me, 'Mommy, there's a bead up my nose'. For the record, I received this statement with admirable aplomb.

I sat her up on the counter, looked up her tiny little nose and, sure enough, a pink sparkly Barbie bead was wedged 3/4 of the way up there. I'm chagrined to admit that my first thought was not, 'oh, poor baby!'. My first thought was, 'crap! I'm not going to have time to do my hair before they pick me up!' As I tried to--gently--extract the bead with tweezers my next thought, again, was not sympathy for my child but instead, 'oh no! I'm the mommy of a kid who puts stuff up her nose! I thought only bad mommies on TV reality shows with bowl hair cuts and mom jeans had kids who did this!'

For future reference, tweezers cannot remove round, slimy beads from small noses. Nor can children under 5 blow out.

I called my girlfriend to inform her why I was running late (as a mother of 3, she just giggled and hung up) and took the only, final, drastic course of action available: I woke up Stuart. He'd just gotten off grave shift and had his eye mask on and ear plugs in. He'd been blissfully asleep for only 30 minutes. AND, he doesn't wake easily. OR happily. But this was urgent. If I didn't make it to Reno to help Santa, Christmas wouldn't happen. And if Christmas didn't happen my children would be traumatized for life and would doubtless end up with strange piercings, shaved heads and years of super-expensive therapy, only to eventually tell me that they were founding a strange cult out in the desert that subsits only on cactus needles and worships the elusive mud-toad...ALL because I didn't make Christmas 2009 happen.

So, all of this in mind, I climbed up on the bed, flipped on the lights, lifted Stu's mask, pulled out his ear plugs and said, in my loudest, clearest teacher-voice, 'YOUR daughter put a bead in her nose!'

Understandably, he stared at me as if I had just announced that Brazil was invading the Carson Valley. To his credit, his next question was fairly lucid--and one I hadn't thought to ask, "why'd she do that?" My exasperated response was, 'I don't know."

So he stumbled out of bed, pulled on whatever clothes were on the floor (turned out to be his duty boots, kahki shorts and t-shirt that was old long before we met 15 years ago) and asked Jen, 'why did you put a bead up your nose?" Her response, delivered in perfect, well-duh-are-you-stupid?!? 3-year old tone, was, 'my nose itched.'.

The good thing about being married to a man with 2 brothers, a master's degree and a former career as an elementary-school teacher who is now a cop is that NOTHING surprises him. Stuart simply nodded as if this made perfect sense, scooped up my super-hero-child (did I mention she was wearing red tights with pink Dora panties pulled on over them, a cape around her shoulders...and nothing else?), bundled both girls into the car (Kate was wearing a Cinderella dress, snow boots and a parrot hat) and drove off to the ER.

Two minutes later, my friends pulled into the driveway. As I climbed into the truck, one momma grabbed my hand in sympathy and informed me her daughter often puts rocks up her nose, another rubbed my back and the third conjured a bottle of wine, poured a large, generous pour into a plastic cup and ordered me to drink. Don't worry: the alcohol was consumed in the driveway before we left. Besides, laws against open containers do not pertain to men driving mommies who are traumatized because 1. their children put strange objects up their nose and 2. their entire family is going to the local ER dressed like war-torn refugees from a bad Halloween party.

15 minutes later, Stuart texted me a picture of Jen holding a specimen cup with a pink, boogie-covered bead triumphantly over her head--much like a tennis champ who just won the French Open. Turns out the ER has an entire 'child-with-foriegn-object-inserted-into-orafice' drawer and can extract such objects in under 30 seconds...all for the bargain price of $600.

I wish I could say this is the only time my girlfriends have had to offer me sympathy drinks; that it is the only time my family has gone to the ER looking, well, like people who NEED to go to the ER; that it is the only time my first thoughts were not for my children but my own mortification at my children’s acts; or that it is the only time my husband has left the house in those disgraceful shorts and tee-shirt. I can’t. But I CAN say it’s the only time one of my children shoved something so far up her nose we had to have a medical doctor remove it.

So far.