Susan Senator
All happy families are not alike...
All happy families are not alike...
A Little Pink Lie
Nat has invented his own form of lying.
When he came home from school Friday afternoon, I noticed he was losing his voice. All of the “silly talk” was silly whispering. As soon as I remarked on it, Nat said, “Social group.” Anytime I pointed out that he was sick, he would say, “Social Group.” So he was letting me know he was sick by basically saying, “please let me go to social group anyway.” Yet he would never say, “Yes,” when I asked him if he was sick.
The next day his voice was almost gone. And he had a swollen pink goopy left eye. “Oh Nat,” I said. “You have pink eye.”
“Circus,” he whispered. Saturday they were supposed to go to the circus.
“But Nat, you’re sick.”
“Circus.”
Nat had drawn a line in the sand. And I hate disappointing him. But he is so cute, so wide-eyed (at least his right eye was) and transparent in his desires. So honest. And yet also dodging the truth: pink eye. A pink lie. So against my best judgment Nat went to the circus.
Today his eye was cemented closed by that conjunctivitis crust and his cough is even juicier. We have no activities today. But our doctor does have a few Sunday hours. “Nat, I’m taking you to the doctor today.”
“Yes,” he whispered, accepting a warm compress and a blanket. Now it’s serious — now that there’s nothing fun planned!
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I get the opposite of whatever I tell my youngest when he doesn’t like what I tell him. I never thought about it as more than behavioural… but I guess it could be a lie of sorts.
I remember when I discovered my eldest lied…. things like brushing his teeth… I did the “yeah, a milestone they told me he’d never reach” and then “dang, now I have to deal with this too”.
Can’t win 🙂
Oh, I’d say you’ve won quite a bit there… 🙂
Conjunctivitis is no fun. There’s really nothing to do for it except to use compresses and let it run it’s course. Sometimes you can prevent it from spreading to the other eye by frequent handwashing and being careful not to touch the unaffected eye. It spreads like wildfire in schools and daycare centers. His housemates probably have it,too.
I meant its course. The apostrophe crept in by mistake.
🙂
I know… d’oh!!! We got him some erythromycin yesterday and the compresses also helped … he’s better somewhat today.
Cute story!! I love that kid! The drops will clear it up fast.
Molly
Susan, Nice to read you again, it’s been a hard year for us as a family and I have withdrawn from a lot of blogs. Never let it be said that antidepressants can’t make a person super depressed.
Anyway, Charlie has taken to doing something similar to what Nat is doing. He likes to eat in his room, but we much prefer that he doesn’t. So he will load up his food on a plate when no one is in the kitchen, and he will carry it upstairs. If he hears anyone, he will walk sort of sideways with it behind him saying, “Oh NO, Oh NO NO NO NO!” all the way in this loud voice. Most of the time he will just hurry up to his room and close the door. Sometimes he will turn back around and take his plate to the table.
I wish we didn’t have a problem with ants. He hates to eat at the table, but it’s really cute to see him trying to get away with this.
Jan
Hi Jan!! So great to hear about Charlie again! He sounds so much more grown up and still so adorable. Yes, ants are bad but maybe worth it! 🙂
That is great. I hope he really enjoyed the circus.
One of my sons hides the funniest things in his bed. Part of the IPad cover, his brothers’ toys, etc. One night he snuck a pen into bed and the next morning he had drawn a black web over much of himself! I like when they are a little bit sneaky — it’s “theory of mind”, right?