Just drop it in my MOTY file

That’s Mother Of The Year, you know.  Took Ben in for his first well child visit in…3 or 4 years? and as the nurse took his BP, she said, “How long has he had this rash?”  This wha?  Child is COVERED in a lacey red rash.  huh.  Ben says “Oh, I’ve had it for ages.  About 2 weeks.”  Thank you son.  I smile and say “Once they pass the strutting around naked age, who knows what goes on with them?”  Because I also clearly never even look at him.  It’s a wonder I can even spot him in a crowd.  My brain unfreezes a bit and I say, “You can’t have had it 2 weeks, I just did a tick scan on you last weekend and you didn’t have it!” (bonus points for checking for ticks, and for actually looking at my child at least once a week)  And it’s then that I remember that he had a fever on Saturday, keeping him from the swim meet.  It went away by that night so I ignored it.  Fever + rash 3-4 days later= Fifth’s disease!  Woo!  I had it diagnosed before the NP even came in.  I rock.  At some things.  Oh, and for those without kids, or with kids too young to have had this several times, it’s this benign virus that usually just causes a low fever and a scary looking red rash.  Only contatious when you dont know they have it, so you can’t even get into trouble for spreading it.  Once the rash shows, they’re fine.

My gross cat brought a baby bunny, SCREAMING, into the house yesterday.  she then dropped it so that her stupid human kittens could learn to hunt by finishing it off.  Instead, I chased the rabbit outside (to die, as it was clearly wounded).  She despairs of us ever having meat.  Then later yesterday afternoon, Ben is sitting in the family room playing with a dollhouse I found in the basement (more later) and Lily walks into the room and says “Dead bunny,” totally flat, like “whose shoe is that?”  or  “there’s something on your face.”  I look and there’s this HUGE blood smear across the floor, right next to Ben, and a mangled bunny corpse (band name? nah) lying where the dollhouse was blocking his sight line.  We know that he does not handle the grisly well.  So I said, “Ben, look at me.  Now stand up and walk toward me, looking at me the whole time. Now leave the room.”  He said, after the crime scene had been tidied,  “Yeah I saw the blood and wondered what it was.”  Seems like a life skill one should have.  If there is a big blood smear, do not play there.  Maybe it needs a rhyme mneumonic: Pile of gore, play no more. or When blood is there, go elsewhere. Anyway, he was totally freaked out and wouldn’t go into the room and was generally being a loon.  I wanted to shout “DUDE, you were practically walking your Playmobil guys on top of it!  and now you can’t be in the same room where it once was?”   bonkers.

So the dollhouse.  Back when Julianna was 4 or so, I bought two rooms of the “Room-by-Room Dollhouse” from Discount School Supply’s clearance.  It looked cool and was full of little fiddly things, which I love.  Once it arrived, I remembered that my precious flower only played with chunky rough hewn wooden toys that refer to recognizeable objects, so as to not stunt her imagination.   So I packed the rooms into the basement for a later date or to give to inferior, stunted children, and sent Julianna off to play with her stump and thimble.  More children were born. We moved.  Standards slipped.  Playmobil and Lego took over my house. Then I was down in the basement earlier this week and noticed a wet box in one of the back sections of the cellar (if you’ve never seen my basement, think of the scariest, dankest, horror movie set you can imagine.  Now add tubs of children’s clothes, spiders, and camping equipment).  After determining ( I think.  Hope.) that the wet had come from some spill from above (no subfloor, so anything spilled on the first floor goes into the basment.  It’s a feature.) and not a recurring leak, I opened the box to find the dollhouse rooms.  I figured Ben and Lily were perfect ages for them, and I was right.  They’ve gotten my 20 bucks worth and more.  I expect they’ll be forgotten soon, once the tiny ice cubes are gone from the wee freezer, but really, what can I expect with these stunted, plastic-infected attention spans.  Julianna and Stumpy, though.  They’re still best buddies.