Just another day with a toddler gone viral

Dear J,

Warning: don’t read this if you didn’t inherit my iron stomach. Your mom and I just recovered from a hellish weekend. It’s bad when you get sick. It’s worse when either your mom and I get sick. It’s terrible when both of us are sick at the same time. But since you are a virus incubator, it was only a matter of time that happened.

The evening started merrily. As usual, I left work to pick you up from daycare. You asked me for your water. I gave it to you as I strapped you in, clicked your seat belts close, pulled them snug, and— just like always —I tapped the clip at the center of your chest and said, “Safe”.

This time though, you coughed, then opened your mouth to release a brown waterfall down the right side of your leg and down the car seat.

Oooookay. That was new. What to do… I thought of slamming the doors and speeding home. Nope, no running away from this one. It was one of those times to be an adult. I tried to stay cool and asked, “What would Winston Wolfe from Pulp Fiction do?”

I snapped out of my daze. The gears started turning. Okay. I looked at you and you seemed to be okay. You were still sitting quietly. But I thought I’d ask anyway, just in case. You replied, “YAaaaaa?” (it sounded like, “Why wouldn’t I be?”). You had no clue what just happened. Of course – this is a new scenario and you hadn’t learned how to react to it yet. Great – now I gotta be your role model too. No cursing. Calm face on.

I explained to you what just happened, and what was going to happen. We were going to clean you up, get you dry, and speed home. Thank God – you liked my plan… and YES, a towel. The only other absorbant material I had was my shirt – I noted it as a last resort. In my head, this looked like the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, except the tower was covered with puke that had to be cleaned along the way.

The chunks and whatever liquid that pooled had to go first. Then, I cleaned the seat next to you to create a workspace. Next, I stood you outside, beside the car. I stuck one leg out like a kickstand to make sure you didn’t run away into the parking lot. You stared at me blankly. You were strangely cooperative. I hurried because it was too good to be true. Pants had to go. This was an emergency. Diaper should be good enough. Socks off. When I got to your shoes, you said, “Wet!” “Yes, they’re wet. That’s why we gotta get them off.” You nodded. So far so good.

I plopped you back inside, on my ‘workspace’ next to your car seat, and started to finish cleaning Ground Zero. I wasn’t sure if it was better this happened before or after we started driving. Then, for some reason, you started spinning around. Then you stood up. Then, you decided to start jumping. And… you hit your head — and started crying. You didn’t cry from throwing up but you cried from hitting your head jumping in the car. I tried to calm you down but my best tricks didn’t work. I quickly threw the towel over your seat and strapped you in. You dialed your volume up to 11 and I ran to the front and burned rubber. A crying baby in an echo chamber turns everything into a chase scene.

Just as my ears stopped bleeding and you sniffed your tears away, you discovered something else was wrong. “Stuck. STUCK! STUCK!” WHAT? What is stuck? Are you stuck? Did I clip your skin? Did I strap you in backwards? You stopped communicating with me and went back to wailing. I drove faster.

I texted mom as I got off the freeway, “J threw up. Bring towel”, then whipped the car around the last corners, and opened the garage door to see your mom waiting. Crunch – I scratched the side of the car coming into the garage too fast without paying attention. Goddamnit. I passed you to your mom, stepped back into the garage, and took a deep breath.

I was upset. I hung a worklight on the garage door and rubbed my hands together to warm them up. I spent the evening washing the car and removing the garage fragments from the side of the car… while mama put you to bed. I was surprised I wasn’t angry at you at all. I wasn’t angry there was puke everywhere. The only thing I was angry about was myself, for clipping the garage door frame.

As I was cleaning up the side of the car, I remembered the last time I washed my previous car, on a cold night just like that one…

It drove me crazy. I cared for it too much. Drove too fast, got too many tickets… and when I slowed down and behaved, got depressed that cars have gotten too fast to enjoy daily.

I snapped back to reality. Damn. There were horrible scratches I couldn’t do anything about now. At least I got all the chunks out. Just then, your mom came out after putting you to bed and helped wash the rest of your stuff.

After I cleaned up, I snuck into your room. You were already snoring.

I missed an evening with you because I couldn’t let go being upset about things that already happened.

That weekend, whatever biological weapon you brought back knocked both your mom and I down to our knees. We were slithering around because we were too weak to stand and our gut churned whenever we were upright. It even sent her to the E.R. because she couldn’t hold any liquid down. (You threw up on me again while your mom was hooked up to I.V.’s at the E.R., by the way.)

You, on the other hand, just had a mild fever one night, and were sparkling, kicking and begging us to play the rest of the weekend.

So there’s your two lessons for today:

1 – Your health is a gift. Don’t take it for granted. While you still have your vision, your hearing, 2 hands, 2 feet, your sanity, your memory… or if you can stand up without spewing your guts out, each day is a blessing. There’s always someone who’s got it worse. As bad as your mom and I had it, we were thankful we had each other because we imagined how worse it’d be if we had to care for you alone.

2 – Don’t get mad at things you can’t change. Don’t make decisions, buy things or commit to a lifestyle that brings you grief or drains your energy. Because, while you’re busy being upset, life passes you by. Be present. Fill your life with good people and good energy.

Let’s see… what else happened since we last talked? Good news is you’re sleeping better now. I’ve been working on helping you understand that night time is bed time, we’re always nearby, and we’ll always come when you call. One of the first successful nights went like this: I explained all your bedtime friends are going to sleep. You sat up in your bed and asked “Doggie? Pick it up?” You crawled to one corner of your bed. “Over there?” Then you set Doggie next to Bear. “Giraffe pick it up? Over there?” You put Giraffe next to Doggie; both lined up now. We said good night to each of them and you plopped your head down close to them. After singing some made-up lullabies, I pretended to be asleep next to you. You would occasionally call to check if I was still there, and I’d wait a little longer to answer each time. After a while, you lifted your head, looked toward me on the floor and asked “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?” Then, after a pause, you whispered, “Goodnight Daddy” and put your head down. That was the first night you didn’t cry to sleep.

Mom tells me that when you wake up, you say good morning to all your bedtime friends and take them down with you for breakfast. One thing I’ve been telling you each night too is that, “When you wake up, mama will be here to hug you and kiss you.” Some nights, you repeat that to yourself until you fall asleep. And one morning, mama heard you talking in your bed as you were waking up, “When you wake up… when you wake up… when you wake up…” and she sneaked in to finish your sentence, hugged you, and kissed you.

Love,

Dad

P.S. – we’ve introduced you to negotiation. Since you can sorta talk and understand logic now, I decided we weren’t letting you terrorize us with your tantrums anymore. You can talk, so I wanted to show you how we can talk to get what you want, instead of your usual strategy of tossing your head back and screaming and not listening.

We were at Chick-Fil-A on Saturday, because we were out, we asked you if you wanted chicken or rice, and you said chicken. But of course, after we got there, you said you didn’t want any. You wanted our fries instead. So I thought alright – let’s do this. It’d be a good chance to try laying the foundation for many many more situations like this.

I knew you wanted 2 things: 1 – to be understood and to understand; 2 – my fries. So first, I made sure you knew that I understood you. “You want the fries?” You nodded; I had your attention. Next, I explained how you were going to get it. I tried to use a calm tone as if it what I was about to say is as true as the sky is blue : “When you eat your chicken, daddy will give you fries.”

Of course, you tossed your head back and wailed again – you understood, but you didn’t like it. Still, that’s good progress. You pointed at my fries and said, “You want it… you want it…” (you use “you” instead of “I” because you copied what we say to you). Now the next step was important. I couldn’t start my reply with, “No…”, because you don’t like hearing ‘No’ and that triggers instant tantrums. So I said “OK”, but this time, I tried a smaller request: “Take the chicken out of the box and put it here, and daddy will give you fries.”

You stopped crying immediately and looked at your chicken. After considering it for a few seconds and deciding “why not”, you moved a piece of chicken. Then you looked at me, I said “Good!” and gave you a piece of my fries. Your mom was at the edge of her seat. Next, I asked you to put the chicken back in the box. (More fries.) Then back out. (More fries.) Then back in. (More fries.) Then “Take a bite”… and you did.

You looked up at me with a big smile and you exclaimed, “When you eat chicken, daddy will give you fries! When you eat chicken, daddy will give you fries!” You were happy like you figured out a great secret. I sighed; your mom sighed. A small victory. We now had a foundation we could build on. And that was our first barter.

Here’s an example of us bartering on another day:

This may seem unimpressive to you. But it’s a huge win for us to have another tool to get you to eat healthy with no tantrums.