Unscrewed

Yes, I know I said I would come back and write but I kinda felt fluish these past couple of days. But you know what happens when you wait?

Your two year old ends up "screwing up" (no pun intended) big time and now you have something to write about.

Like most Cities across this great nation we call the United States, Chi town was suffering a heat wave of gross magnitude (because it felt gross).

In general, I am a big summer person. I need my vitamin D. I need to be outdoors. I love the sun and the water and taking walks all over my neighborhood. But the idea of that was unconscionable this past week.

My little Bam is also an outdoor baby. he takes after me and his maternal Grandfather. He also loves water and if he can not get in it outdoors, he will find a way to get in it indoors, which never turns out well.

Yesterday, poor Bam was bored out of his mind. I spent my minimal energy chasing after him most of the day. There was not enough he could do or get his hands on to make being inside enough entertainment for him.

He started with his typical - pull the kitchen chair to the sink and pour water from cup to cup and act surprisingly amazed when most of the water ends up on the counter, the chair, his clothing and the floor as opposed to actually ending up in the other cup. After a few minutes of pulling him away and cleaning up and repeating the scenario, I try distraction techniques and find him something that does in fact keep his attention for about five minutes.

Then he discovers that bottle of "disappearing ink" that his sister So won after exchanging arcade tickets for it. He climbs on a brand new case of bottled water that is conveniently located below the island ledge where the ink bottle sits and retrieves it. He manages to twist the top off and shake the contents out all over the floor and the pantry door and the cabinet doors and the walls until there are numerous puddles and splatters of blue liquid everywhere. And then Mommy finally comes out of whatever stupor she is in an notices and says, "oh my".

The one concession was that I felt slightly relieved when I discovered that it was the disappearing ink and would not leave navy blue stains everywhere. It did occur to me that So would be none to happy when she discovers the bottle is completely empty. And then after I took the lead and found a towel to begin the clean up, Bam followed my lead and retrieved his own towel and "helped" me in his own special way.

And then we attempted more distraction technique and other baby friendly toys, which lasted MAYBE another five minutes.

My ears then perked up to the sound of contents shaking, such as sand or ...........SALT!!!

And so I ran again to my kitchen floor and stepped on gritty spot after gritty spot and discovered an entire shaker has salted the floor. I went to retrieve the broom and Bam followed, looking for his little minny "escoba" as he calls it. I grabbed a dust pan, he grabbed a paper plate. I swept up the salt, he spread the salt around. We were working together, as a team. And finally weI was done cleaning and could continue with whatever it was I had been doing before. First, making sure the salt shaker was pushed farther back onto the kitchen counter.

And then, again "shake, shake, shake" rinse, repeat....

Not sure how he got that salt shaker the second time.

He hardly napped yesterday, not sure why.

He was acting very tired by 8pm (as was I) and Hun and I put him to bed, but he wasn't having it.

I would think his very BUSY day had wiped him out as it did me, but he was waging war in his crib and he won.

He came out on the condition that Hun would spend some time with him. And there they were together. In the front of the house, in Hun's study having some male bonding time while I was very busily facebooking of course. (Yes, "facebooking" is a word.)

I was just reading about a friend's current ordeal with her 5 year old son who came downstairs to disclaim "I have a penny in me" and how that would result in some shiny poop the next morning, when Hun came to me carrying the little monster.

"He stuck a screw up his nose!"

"Huh? How's that now???"

"There is currently a screw up is nose."

"Were you watching him?"

"Yes!"

"So you WATCHED him stick a screw up his nose?"

"Well .... no, I must have missed that particular moment..."

So we call my mom, she comes over and we are off to the ER.

It was EXACTLY how I planned to spend my night.

A bunch of summer accidents and heat stroke victims were clogging up the waiting room and Bam apparently thought he was there to be everyone's entertainment as he danced and sang like a well trained monkey. In fact, one lovely woman there with her own, slightly older son asked, "what's wrong with him?"

Well nothing really ..... thank G-d ..... except the sharp foreign object up his left nostril.

And then we were finally in an ER room, waiting for the Doctor and my lovely little Bam could be heard yelling,

"Dockor , Noose, I ready!!!!"

He makes me so proud!

And after the Doctor first suggested we occlude the empty nostril while I blow into Bam's mouth, (which slightly stunned my child but did not release the screw) we resorted to the nose forceps which were magic. The screw came out and Bam remarked,

"I feel better,"

as if he just passed a stool.

He was a pretty happy camper the entire time, even through the extraction of the screw, but funny enough, was ready to go and did not like having to wait for the discharge papers.

He fell asleep as soon as his tiny little head with cute, screwless nose hit the car seat.

So he is officially "unscrewed" and we can go on with our lives.