Yesterday, I awoke with the chills. I could feel every inch of my sinus cavities, and it felt like something corrosive was trickling down my throat. My whole body ached, and I stumbled around the house wearing my bathrobe. As I was disposing of one of her diapers, Clara shut herself in her room. Sitting on her pink, monogrammed, child-sized overstuffed chair, and wearing not a stitch of clothing, she pretended to read her storybooks.
Every two minutes or so, I'd open the door to check on her. She'd grin winsomely at me, then hop out of her seat and come shut the door again. Not even Wilbur the dog was allowed to come inside.
I heard her talking to herself in a conversational tone.
At lunch things turned dicey. Clara gave Wilbur some bites of chicken nuggets and pasta. For those who don't know, Wilbur is a chubbier dog. He's on a special diet and under no circumstances is allowed people food.
"Hey now, none of that," I told Clara. "Next time you'll sit in time-out."
She responded by chucking an entire fistful of pasta over the side of her chair. Wilbur was in ecstasy.
In time-out corner, Clara made a run for it. I grabbed her and put her back. She said, "Ha-ha!" and made a run for it again, but this time she tripped and fell into the wall. Her head hit a light socket. She hit with such force, she broke the plastic casing on the socket.
I held her and rocked her back and forth, back and forth. I put a little cold pack shaped like a piglet on the bump that was forming. Now my chills mingled with sympathy shudders, and I bit my lips in angst. But Clara has a fairly hard noggin, I feel. She stopped crying after only a minute or so and I brought her back into the kitchen to finish lunch.
About an hour later, as I was washing up and still feeling extremely woozy, Clara bailed off the couch and smacked her head on the tile floor. I had not even known she could climb up on the couch. She hadn't been able to only two days before.
This time, she was ticked. I held her and whispered soothing things into her hair while she yelled at me, at the couch, at Wilbur, at the pillows on the couch, at Daddy, and for Daddy. She also told me, in baby-speak, that she wanted to play outside and I'd better let her because she was having an AWFUL day.
This is nothing, I told myself. You'd better brace yourself for the trips to the emergency room when she starts playing sports.
After I'd gotten the piglet pack out again and inspected the bruises--one in the middle of her forehead from the light socket, and one on the side of her forehead from the tile floor--and after I had her settled down and playing again, there was clearly only one thing left for me to do: stand in front of the pantry and eat half a bag of potato chips.
After the potato chips (and a couple chunks of cheese), I felt much better.
We went downstairs to play, where there is lots of carpet and relatively few angles.
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