Just a quick post today, folks, and please bare with me because I’m a bit tired. Yesterday, my sweet T had laryngitis and Seuss had a rough bout with croup. Leo complained from sun-up until sun-down that he wanted to be sick, and that it was unfair that his siblings were sick and he was not. I kid you not- kids can be so weird. Well, Leo’s wish was granted overnight and today has been another long day of sick kids, games, puzzles, books, and movies. I can’t believe it’s only 4:45 pm, but that could be due to the fact that I woke up just after midnight to Leo screaming. Before I was even conscious, it was immediately apparent that he, too, had succumbed to croup. I opened my door to find him sprawled in the upstairs hallway coughing, crying, and totally freaking out.
My heart breaks a little bit each time one of my children get sick. It’s a terrible feeling. That said, Leo used to get croup really, really badly and I was relieved to see that he was capable of freaking out because freaking out requires a lot of oxygen and energy and you don’t have either of those things when you are in the throes of acute croup.
This was me today, only slightly less chipper-looking.Once I got him [somewhat] settled down, he eked out, “Am… I … dying?!?! Can… you… DIE… from… croup?!? You can, can’t you?!” Turns out books can not only alleviate some of your anxiety but they can also fuel it. Folks, the poor kid thought he had diphtheria! He read it in a book somewhere.
Anyway, we all managed to go back to sleep- some of us did that better than others- and now here I sit, at 4:45 pm, feeling like it’s 11:00 pm and yearning for my bed while my kids watch The Wizard of Oz. Because I’m exhausted, my mind is wandering away from Oz and back to last night. I’m reflecting on the whole croup-diphtheria thing with a smile because it’s a perfect example of Leo being Leo.
Thinking about last night made me recall one of Leo’s early book obsessions and yet another example of Leo being Leo. It seems apt to share this particular book with you guys today since we’re already talking about illnesses. This book was one of our very first Instant Dump Classics and everyone in our extended family has read it to Leo at least one time. And those family members who have read it and who are reading this post right now don’t even need me to type the title because this Instant Dump Classic is that memorable for reasons which will soon become clear.
The book is called Body Baddies: All About the Mini-Monsters Living on You! by John Woodward. I can still hear Leo’s little two-year-old voice saying, “Mumma? Can you read Body Baddies to me? Can you read about the guinea worm again?” And fortunately (unfortunately?) for you guys, you can get this book on Amazon* right now for as little as one cent:
Folks, if you don’t know what a guinea worm is, I triple-dog-dare you to Google it right now. I’m totally serious. Google it right now and I’ll wait riiiiiight here.
DID YOU SEE IT?!
ARE YOU MAD AT ME?! Does it help if I tell you that you get bonus points if your Google search provided an image of one being extracted from a man’s foot like you can see in Body Baddies? SEE?! Leo being Leo!
Now that I’ve officially grossed you out, I’d like to know what gross things your children have been obsessed with in the past. Do you have a guinea worm equivalent? Share here! Get your revenge on me!
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You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you’re confusing courage with wisdom.
~The Wizard of Oz
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*FTC Disclosure: I’m not sure if the Body Baddies post counts as an Amazon Affiliate link but just in case, here’s my disclosure statement. If you do, in fact, purchase Body Baddies for a penny, I will receive an even smaller commission. I’m not even sure I am endorsing Body Baddies. Sure, it’s chock-full of everything you would ever want to know about gross things lurking in and on your body, and certainly the illustrations are nothing if not memorable, but I feel like I’m still scarred from reading this book so many times. I can see that poor guy’s guinea worm infested foot crystal-clear, as if I just read the book this morning. And it’s been YEARS, folks. So, buy it if you want to but don’t say I didn’t warn you about it.
When I was pregnant, my husband hid his textbooks on very high shelves (he is 6’2 and I am 5’1) because I was constantly diagnosing myself with every horrible condition ever. (This actually happens periodically-for some reason, the multi-thousand page books are more enticing than Google.)
As it turned out, I had a crazy normal pregnancy-until week 35 when even the perinatologists got excited and I was admitted. So later when I read my chart notes-and looked in the books-I realized how bad it had been. “Hey, I almost died! Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Oh, the look on his face.
(Hugs to your poor sick kiddos and you!)
Good thing you didn’t realize it until after- could you imagine? I remember looking up stuff while pregnant. I was considered high risk for all of mine and you just can’t look some of that stuff up! 🙂 Keep that stuff up high!