A job for a good daddy.....

I've caught a cold.

And as Daddio would certainly tell you, (if you cared to listen) I could brave an appendectomy sans anesthesia better and with less complaining than I do a cold.

I start fall to pieces at the slightest twinge of a sore throat or one too many sneezes.

I caught this cold from one of two places.

Marmie (my darling mother) was sick and sounding like a slightly feminine man when we spoke numerous times last week.

As much as I sometimes think otherwise, germs don't travel 3000 miles over phone lines.

So it must have come from the other source, one of my lovables.

One of the youth in my work program came in sicker than a dog last week.

Sneezing, sniffling, coughing....

"I caught it from my baby girl" he confessed.

"Ya gotta stop kissin her on the mouth" I told him with a smile.

"I can't" he said " I can't stop she is sooooo cute and her cheeks are chubby. Every time I'm near her I try to eat them off her face. I can't help it. You should see how chubby her cheeks are, soooo chubby and sweet"

He continued, "You know her whole family dogged me and didn't think I'd step up and be there for my girl. I've showed them. I buy her diapers and clothes and I even got her medicine for this bad cold."

Oh well, I can't really complain about catching a cold from a juvenile offender who has admitted to being a kind of father to his baby girl that every daughter should have...one who smothers her with love and kisses, diapers and clothes and calls her fat cheeks the sweetest things he's ever seen.

PS...Bob, thanks (and I love you) for paring (nibbling) these mammoth babies down to a normal size ;-)

If you ever had any doubts that he loves you.....

As part of my Motherhood Mission Statement (the big rant most of us know-it-alls have and share with our friends and anyone else who will listen before we even have any children) I stated that I would always be truthful with my children….that statement turned into a lie.

Googie’s phobia has made a liar outta me.

The technical term for Googie’s psychosis is Emetopohia, which is the fear of vomit or vomiting.

At our house we can’t call the flu the flu.

It doesn’t matter if you have body quaking chills, a 103.5 temperature, and are pooping pearly white foam…it’s “something that you ate”.

That way Googie can’t catch it.

Recently, poor Bear came down with a horrible case of “something that he ate”.

It was a very busy week in Googie’s life, she had her internship to finish, she had things to do with her show, she had work, and a ton of homework and I couldn’t risk having her go off the deep end by telling her about Bear’s ailment so we made a plan.

Daddio, Bear, Trouble (Googie’s fiancé) and I all agreed to keep Bear’s condition a secret from Googie.

It wasn’t easy.

She was so busy she didn’t seem to notice me walking through the house wearing elbow high gloves and carrying around an industrial sized bottle of Lysol.

She did notice her brother, laying on the couch, sea foam green colored. She noticed his sunken, red rimmed eyes and his parched lips.

She noticed how he hugged the blankets tightly to his chest.

WHAT is wrong with him?” she asked nodding at the blanket covered heap on the couch.

“He has a cold” I lied.

“A cold? She mocked

“Look at him, ohhhh poor baby” she smirked.

“What a freakin baby…He has a little tiny cold and he’s on the couch, laying there like he’s dyin”.

“Pa-thet-ic”

“Guys are such babies, look at me, I have a cold TOO and I’ve been sick for days and somehow I'm managing to go on with my life. I'm not laying around nursing it”.

“Un-believable!!!! she rubbed it in. “He just wants you to baby him”.

I sat at Bear’s feet and stroked his leg and watched as he took his sister’s insulting tongue lashing.

He must really love you Googie….

(Truthfully though, if he’d had an ounce of strength, and wasn’t severely dehydrated he probably woulda pounded you into a pulp).

PS...Confidential to Marmie, remember when I used to call you hyperventilating and refusing to care for my sick vomiting children, threatening to run away from home and never return? Remember that you ordered me off the front porch and back into the house by saying,“you are gonna mess up those children?” ( I just wanted to let you know, at that point it was a done deal).