On Avoiding Impalement and Meltdowns

I have a personal policy: Don't Get Stabbed. It's a good rule to live by, mostly because being impaled doesn't feel very good.

I've had only moderate success. I've mostly avoided ER trips and hospitalizations due to stabbing, but knives have met my fingers on too frequent an occasion in the kitchen and I sometimes have to go to the doctor and get a shot.

I don't like shots, like most people. But I get them, because I don't want to get diphtheria or measles or the flu. And so earlier this year I waived my Don't Get Stabbed rule to get a flu shot. Another thing that necessitated a Don't Get Stabbed waiver for a flu shot was my desire to not have an influenza-stricken infant. So if The Sequel ever ends up reading this, remember boy that I GOT STABBED FOR YOU.

I'm now weighing the pros and cons of getting stabbed again, this time to prevent H1N1, known better as the Swine Flu even though you don't get it from pigs (though you can probably get it from lobbyists, so maybe that's what they're talking about). The Wife wants me to get shot. The Sequel has already received his, so me getting shot only benefits myself. I see the declining Lobbyist Flu numbers and I'm not entirely sure I'm all that eager to waive my Don't Get Stabbed rule.

But there is another reason that I'm not eager to waive the rule, and that's due to the last time I got stabbed in the name of flu prevention.

I went with The Boy to get both of us flu shots. We went to Target, because getting shot at Target means that I can go ogle the big screen TVs. This is actually why I do lots of things at Target, such as grocery shopping or getting an eye exam or buying toiletries. It's much more fun buying toilet paper when you can spend some time watching a 50-inch high-definition flatscreen in the process. This is why I think Best Buy should open optometrists and health clinics in its stores. I'd get shots constantly.

Until that trip, I had neglected to consider the idea that my eldest son also has a Don't Get Stabbed Policy. And I had grown complacent. The Boy had, for the most part, avoided meltdowns. He's had one or two public meltdowns, but not for some time and I had figured to be long past that phase. And Thank God for that, too, because about the only thing worse than being a parent of a child having a public meltdown is, well, getting stabbed. And only then it depends on what you're being stabbed with.

So I took The Boy to get a flu shot and used my default parental weaponry -- bribery. Be good getting a shot, I said, and you'll get a treat afterward.

OK Dad, he said.

But then Shot Time came, and The Boy thought the better of it.

"Uh, father," he said. "I'd rather not get a shot. I respectfully decline and shall forgo any promise of post-shot sweets."

Only I wish he said this, and I wish he said it calmly. Or even with a moderate bit of stress. Instead, he proceeded to act like he was being sent to a torture chamber. He screamed. And then when he was done he screamed again. He screamed in the lobby. He screamed in the office. He screamed as I removed his shirt. He screamed as I had to hold him down so he could get the shot. He screamed afterward. And then he screamed when I informed him that he would not be the beneficiary of a post-shot treat, given that 15 straight minutes of screaming does not constitute "being good."

In the midst of this, I was looking around for any kind of ski mask that I could use to hide my identity. Absent that, I just shoved half my face into my shirt, lest somebody at the Target recognize me, point and shout, "HEY, LOOK AT THE REALLY, REALLY BAD PARENT WHO CAN'T CONTROL HIS CHILD!"

(By the way, people say, "control your child" as if there is some sort of magical fairy parenting dust that we can use in times of need to keep our uncontrollable children in line; if there IS some magical fairy parenting dust, by the way, please let me know, because I'd really like some.)

So as you can see, my Don't Get Stabbed policy combines with my Avoid Public Meltdown's policy to make me really not want to get a flu shot. But I'll probably get one, because I love my wife. (Got that Wife? I'll get stabbed and risk a child having a public meltdown for you!) And then the Lobbyist Flu will fade away and I'll get sick, anyway.

Frostbitten on Times Square

I'm in a hotel room. I have a view of a giant sign of a guy staring into the crotch of a woman in her underpants.

Yup. I'm in New York.

I got here Sunday evening. I was surprised to be met by ... cold.

It's cold? In a place that isn't Minnesota? How can that be?

Based on what everybody tells me, Minnesota is the coldest place on Earth, home to July skiing and August snowboarding. I'm reminded so often how cold Minnesota is, by people who don't live in the state, that the only conclusion that I could come up with was that every other place is tropically warm.

Sure, I lived in Indiana for a year and a half and recall some "cold" temperatures there. And I seem to remember nearly freezing my ears off in Chicago. And I even remember -- gasp! -- ice in South Carolina. Clearly, I was wrong in my recollection, I thought, and I was brainwashed into having those memories by the Minnesota Department of Keeping People From Moving Away. Everybody else talks about how cold it is in Minnesota. They must be right.

To wit, a conversation I had with a woman two weeks ago:

WOMAN: Where you calling from?

ME: Minnesota.

HER: MINNESOTA? Oh, I could never live there. Too cold.

ME: (Wondering how my one-word answer to her question somehow became an invitation for her to move to my state): Uh, OK.

The woman on the other line was from DETROIT. I heretofore thought that Detroit was rather cold in winter, but after that I knew it was a tropical paradise. And New York, of course, could not be any cooler.

So when I left on Sunday for the city so nice they named it twice, I didn't bother with a hat. Or a scarf. "Bah! I should be bringing my SHORTS!" I thought.

I thought wrong. It's fricking freezing here.

(And, by the way, no matter which direction you walk the wind is hitting you in the face, which is so totally not fair ...)

I've now learned now to rely on Mr. Weather Channel. Naturally, the day I leave it's supposed to warm up here.

But it's still not the tropics.

Spreading the joy (and cake)

We celebrated The Sequel's first birthday on the first day of the year last week. This was also an occasion to celebrate what we hope will be the end to the following phrase, which we've heard at least once a day since then:

"Ah, looks like you missed the tax break." Or some other iteration, such as the ever popular "Too bad he wasn't born a few hours earlier, then you could have got a tax break." OK, people. I get it. I lost $400 due to the timing of my second son's birth. Thanks for spending the past year rubbing it in.

Birthday parties in my family are modest affairs and this was no exception, though scheduling was tricky, mostly because we needed to avoid the very real possibility that the child may be asleep or, worse, screaming at the top of his lungs. So we had to make sure that it was set late enough to ensure he was adequately napped, but not so late as to risk a major breakdown. And in our case the morning was out because of the lingering possibility that a certain percentage of guests will come hung over. The night before was New Year's Eve, after all.

Beyond that, expectations for the first birthday party are low. There are presents, of course. He ripped some of the wrapping off, and then we had to keep him from eating the wrapping while encouraging him to play with the new, noisy toy wrapped in its packaging like it belonged in Fort Knox.

(I've often wondered why anybody in their right mind would want to steal a small child's toy; most people I know see those toys -- or, more accurately, hear them -- and want to run away, screaming; this suggests that all the fingers I've cut, the tools I've wrecked and the curse words I've uttered were all to satisfy the whims of toy executives with an overdeveloped sense of the value of their own products.)

While the burgeoning toddler and his burgeoning toddler short attention span was interested in these noise polluters, he was far more interested in things he couldn't have, like various household valuables and purses and sharp objects and mugs filled with steaming hot water. In his place went the 5-year-old, who apparently had no qualms about playing with toys designed for a child one-fifth his age, and doing so in the most obnoxious and loud way possible.

But the coup de grace of any 1-year-old birthday party is the cake. Everybody shows up to these parties to watch the infant turn a piece of frosting-topped carbs into mush and the kitchen into an area that any respectable building inspector would prefer to condemn. It's the kid's first real performance of his life, and there's a lot of pressure to perform.

So I was nervous -- he wasn't, but he also has no qualms about walking around with loaded shorts. And I was nervous for good reason. The first boy, at his 1st birthday party, first demonstrated his odd dislike of cake. Amidst a house full of guests, we placed a special, small "fingers cake" in front of The Boy in his high chair. He looked at it suspiciously, then ignored it. We, and our friends, then spent several minutes trying to coax The Boy into making a mess of my kitchen.

(Some people still tell me that I shouldn't be worried about my son's dislike of cake, but I can't help it; not liking cake is just so ... unnatural; it's like seeing Brett Favre in a Vikings uniform; sure, some good things can come from it, but it just doesn't seem right.)

I feared that The Sequel would follow in his brother's cake-hating footsteps, and we hadn't presented him with cake before the birthday party. Would he eat any? Would he give my family members a mess that they could chuckle about with a hearty "Glad my kids are beyond that stage" comment on their way home?

He would. The Sequel dove right into the cake and didn't stop, spreading cake and frosting all over himself, his chair, the floor, the table, the walls, The Wife, me, various guests, household pets and a few neighbors who weren't even there. He got frosting into places I didn't even know existed.

Just as it should be.