Fun With Play-Dough

Revenge of the Animals: a Florida woman was killed today when an Eagle Ray jumped on her boat and stabbed her. Attacks like this are incredibly rare, according to all the experts. Tell that to James Bertakis, 81 years old at the time, who had the same thing happen on October 18, 2006, and lived to tell. He is now known as ‘Stingray Jim’.

In other news, Bush found it necessary to defend the Iraq war. I wonder why that is newsworthy; it’s not exactly a surprise, is it? Of course he is going to defend it; what else is he going to do? Admit fault? Like hell.

What burns me is that, in spite of all this “War is Great” rhetoric, aftercare for veterans in this country sucks. PTSD, homelessness, sexual assault; we don’t want to address these problems; we just want to sit back and congratulate ourselves on how well the surge is going. A country can’t separate combat from its aftermath; what happens to the brave women and men after they get back home is part of this war. A large segment of the military has to continue fighting long after their deployment ends, and that is neither a Republican nor a Democratic issue; it is just plain wrong.

We keep hearing about the housing market, trouble on Wall Street, and the fact that the dollar is more or less on life support. All very bad things. Still, much more concerning is how the credit crunch is affecting the student loan market.

And yes, that’s not a typo: it’s a market.

Several large lenders have pulled out of the student loan business altogether. If my daughter were 16 instead of six, I’d be hyperventilating right now.

Having said that, this might be a good time to think about this whole issue surrounding student loans; nobody should graduate with a diploma in one hand, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth in loans in the other.  The government should step up and set guidelines; better test scores and a higher grade point average should entitle anyone to have a first rate education. Washington can certainly find an earmark for that? 

Three-year-old Mendel has a cold. Not a bad cold; just enough to fill up his sinuses with an enormous amount of snot, which is a problem because he absolutely refuses to blow his nose. My daughter was perfectly capable of blowing her nose at the age of 2; unfortunately, I can’t remember what we did to teach her that. Come to think of it, she probably just figured it out on her own. She does that with most things while we stand idly by.

Not so with my son. We urge, cajole; we beg and threaten. We show him how, again and again. Any time we have to blow our nose, we run to him: Look, we say, this is how you blow your nose! Not in, Out! See?

He sees all right. He just doesn’t think this is a particular habit he needs to make his own. So he sniffs and pretends to wipe, meanwhile inhaling liters and liters of the stuff until he gets sick, of course in the middle of the night, and throws up everything that’s been draining in the wrong direction.

Fantastic, my husband and I tell each other, here we go again. While one of us mops the floor, the other dangles the child over the toilet, which doesn’t do a thing but makes us feel like we’re helping.

Throwing up in the toilet (or a bucket, or the potty, or even –for god’s sake- the sink) isn’t fun. As far as my son is concerned, it’s counter productive: he does his best hurling when positioned near a rug, or in his bed. Even better is our bed, but we don’t let him anywhere near our bedroom when he’s preparing for a slam-dunk in the sick department.

After Mendel has done his thing, and we have cleaned the floor, changed his clothes, cussed a little bit, and started the laundry, he always feels better.

“I’m thirsty,” he announces. “Want juice.”

Really? I don’t bloody think so.

“And a cookie” he adds.

Now, I’ll be the first one to admit that children need to be fed. It’s a law of nature: get pregnant, have child, feed it.

However, over the years I have learned that feeding a child anything within hours after throwing up is a very bad idea. Still, we have a hard time telling him no altogether; what if he dehydrates? So we give him a little juice. He throws it up.

I know, I know, you’re supposed to give them that electrolyte stuff, but my children refuse to ingest any of that, even when it’s masked as popsicles. No, they want idiotic things when they’re sick; like cookies, lox, or yoghurt. Ever tried to clean up yoghurt-vomit?

One time my daughter Isabella spend a whole day throwing up and then announced she wanted to eat macaroni and cheese. We said no. She asked again; we still said no.

“Mom, I’m not sick anymore, I promise.”

Still we said no. She kept asking and asking, until finally we relented and gave her one scoop of macaroni. Then another, and another, until finally she ate three bowls’ worth. 

I guess when they really aren’t sick anymore, they know. And you’ll have to feed them again, eventually. Just keep the cleaning products handy.

Meantime, Mendel stayed home from school today and is lying on the couch, missing his Preschool’s Purim party. At about 11 am, his fever magically disappears, but now he’s tired from being sick all night, and all he wants to do is lie there with his blanket. He will rest up and be completely over it by 7 pm, at which point he’ll have enough energy to stay up indefinitely. Yay.