Expect the Unexpected

Did you know that the rate of foreign body ingestion (FBI) by children under six has doubled in the last twenty years?

Did you also know that boys are the most frequent culprits of such antics?

If you’re wondering why I’ve acquired such esoteric information, it’s because on Sunday morning my son swallowed a machine screw.  He came into the bedroom, bawling his eyes out as he told us over and over that he swallowed a screw and that it felt weird and he didn’t mean it.

My son is four and some change.  This wasn’t some random act, nor was it an accident.  He swallowed it deliberately.  He told on himself.

It was Sunday, a day where I sleep in late due to writing shenanigans, and my wife was basically on her own to handle the situation.  We had both made plans for a lazy Sunday spent together as a family.  My son, it seems, had other ideas.

*heavy sigh*

Now, before you become alarmed, he’s in no danger.  Less than thirty minutes after we were informed of his dabbling with pica, my wife had sequestered a doctor and x-rays, in that order, both of which pointed towards the screw waltzing through the tiny one’s digestive system in three to five days.

Oh, and we must ascertain it’s out, otherwise we have to do more x-ray’s.

Yeah.  Yeaaaaaah.  Parenting y’all.

I had a thought as I was poking around in my sons stinky nonsense, and it was the sudden realization that I was wearing surgical gloves and ferreting through my number one’s number two.

The absurdity of the moment was nearly overwhelming.  You don’t really notice how far you are into the deep end until you reach the extremes of ‘normal’ human behavior.

Normal humans don’t dig through feces.

I was amiably chatting with my son while I squished his turds.

I am insane.  Paradoixcally, it is this exact insanity which allows me to be a functional adult human being.

You see, being a parent isn’t a task conducive to sanity.  You voluntarily spend gobs of your time on your little one(s).  It is your most prized possession, the irreplaceable water of your only existence, and you chug it like you’re doing a stage adaptation of Leaving Las Vegas. 

Mostly, that time is spent on maddening activities which seemed wholly rational at the time.

I’m not blind to all the good being a parent does for me.  It makes me a better person, more tolerant, more empathetic, and more patient to boot.  However, by all the saints and martyrs, parenting has prices in currency I hadn’t even known existed before I was required to pay them in full.

Wanna know what happens when you only get two hours of sleep a night because of your newborn son and you’re still trying to finish up a semester in a college on the business end of a forty minute drive and a mile-and-a-half walk?

I now know what purple tastes like, which is not the kind of knowledge I was trying to acquire at the time.  I just wanted an education, not the thorny embrace of stygian lore that can never be un-learned

The second observation, hot on the heels of my first bathroom revelation, was this: Being a parent requires you to expect the unexpected.

Being a parent requires you to be able to adapt quickly to circumstances beyond your experience and imagination.  While you cannot possibly know everything your tiny ones will do, your mind has to be fluid enough to flow into the space your children regularly smash into existence.

It happens a lot.

My wife wanted a quiet Sunday morning.  Instead, she got four hours at the hospital while her husband lay insensate from an all-night writing bender.  I wanted to be doing literally anything else as I stood over the toilet, but instead I dug through my son’s scat and talked about dinosaurs and superheroes.

Life, especially life as a parent, is unpredictable and messy.  Frequently in that order.  The best any of us can do is try to be ready for things we never expected.  Easy, right?

Sleeves up, gloves on, and whistle while you parent.

Screwfully,

The Unsheathed Quill