Death

  Lately, Ryland has been talking about death. I know that this is a thing that children will often start to talk about when they start to realize that things die and that people will die too. Ryland is not the normal toddler (so every parent says about their child). Ryland is a contemplative little guy that thinks about things and ponders them while twirling his hair. He comes up with some of the strangest questions sometimes that I know he has been mulling over for hours such as, “Did God start out as a baby?” I’m sure that some of our teaching adventures have back-fired into making him contemplate things that he would not have otherwise. Most children would learn a little, think something is neat, and then move on, but not Ryland. He has to analyze it and then pops back with a million questions about it, usually days or weeks later so that it comes unexpectedly.

He has been asking a lot about when certain people will die, like me or his grandparents, or friends or worse, himself. While riding in the car one day he said that when Mom and I die that he was going to get a new mom and dad. That just puts a downer on the mood while singing along with Veggie Tales Silly Songs in the car. Kids seem to have a way to cut right through you in their baseness that is usually unheard of in adult circles. He then backtracked and said that we were not going to die any time soon, so he didn’t need to worry about it. Thanks, now I’m worrying about it.

One particular week he was talking a lot about death. He would be sitting in his car seat twirling his hair staring into space and start to get teary eyed and say that he did not want to die or he would just get out of the bath and start talking about his eminent demise. It’s heartbreaking to think of your four year old dying and that he gets upset knowing and thinking about dying. We were in the grocery store one day and got a coupon for something that was going to go off sale that day and Kara asked me, “is today the last day?” As in, is today the last day of the sale? Ryland responded with, “…to be alive?” This probably means that while we were talking about ice cream and Lucky Charms that were on sale, he was thinking about when his last day on Earth would be. It’s hard enough to divert situations where death really does come up, let alone when we are talking about things that are completely different and he is still thinking about death.

As a parent, when questions come up that seem difficult such as death, answering them honestly is the best thing to do. This is, of course, the exact opposite of what we did when our beta fish died. We got a fish and Ryland named him Charlie, but Charlie did not live as long as we thought he would. We bought him food, but what we thought was regular food turned out to only be fish treats (why would they even make fish treats, it’s not like they do tricks or anything) and so when the package said that you should only feed him two to three times a week, we followed the instructions. So essentially, we starved Charlie to death. We did the responsible thing and replaced Charlie with another male beta fish that looked very similar and called him Charlie and did not tell the kids. We killed Charlie II in the exact opposite manner. We overfed him so that his belly got so big that he just died with a swollen belly. We replaced Charlie II and got a new fish, but Charlie III did not look like Charlie I or II at all. He was smaller and much more blue than the other two Charlies. 

Ryland got up early the morning after we replaced Charlie II with Charlie III and he  noticed that Charlie looked like he was a different color, more blue and solid colored. He said that he liked Charlie’s old color. He then started asking why Charlie also looked a lot smaller than before. Kara and I looked at each other and tacitly decided to break the news to him. We were prepared for the worst outcome of him either crying or him wondering about his own mortality all day. Kara kindly and gently told him what happened to Charlie and that this was a new fish. He just looked at Charlie III, looked at us, then looked back at Charlie III and laughed. I’m not sure if that was a sign of maturity or that he is turning into a psychopath, but I’m glad we did the right thing, and also that he didn’t ask a million unanswerable questions. As for my parent’s dog that recently died however, Ryland thinks that he is currently in an extended stay at the pet hospital.

Poo Finger

Preface: I wrote this after Ryland was born.


          Changing the diaper on a new baby can be an arduous task that requires both dexterity and swiftness likened that of a pit crew during a NASCAR race. You must have a plan, be able to execute that plan, and do it quickly before being splashed by any numerous fluids that routinely project from the three main orifices of the baby. It also requires the right tools that must be placed near the newborn in order to make the job go by efficiently. If you are successful, then you will transform your screaming, terror of a child, in to the loving bobble-headed baby that you envisioned nine months before it made its entry into the world.


          Every so often, more often than can regularly be counted, my newborn baby will have a dirty diaper. According to the poo chart and the other baby manuals that they give you before you leave the hospital, the newborn should have six to twelve dirty diapers per day. I’m not quite sure which alien baby that they are referring to, but our baby has about fifty to sixty dirty diapers per day, including the clean ones that he poops on while changing a dirty diaper. The problem is not that he poos an exorbitant amount, it is that he cries constantly until he is changed and while he is being changed, and a little after that too. He does not like his diaper to be changed and screams incessantly like a car alarm with his head becoming beet red and the blue vein on his forehead popping out until the process is through.
    
          Now the actual process must be done like a professional. The first time our new baby was changed, it was in the hospital and I let the professional nurses who know what they are doing change the baby while I watched on, terrified for my life. I was able to muster up the courage to help change the next seventy-five or so diapers until he left the hospital, but I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I’m not quite sure he knew what to do either. He made little faces while the blackest tar-like poo I’ve ever seen came squirting out his rear-end like Play-Doh coming out of one of those dough smashers. That kind of poo was not supposed to come until a day or two after birth, but our baby started shooting that black goop out within the first few hours, scaring everyone that peaked inside the diaper.
     
          Now, after one month, things have gotten calmer, but changing the diaper can still be a chore. First off, you have to know what you are getting yourself into before you start to unfasten those Velcro straps. You have to place the new diaper off to the side, open and facing up for quick delivery underneath the buttocks of the previously soiled baby. You also have to have the wet wipes ready for any number of nastiness that may be hidden underneath the playful characters that are printed on the diaper. Also, there is the butt paste. This is my favorite part and the thing that is most important for the overall health of your child, and also how you can get intimately close to the child’s nether region.

          There isn’t much good with having a poo finger, though I have thought of using my new plague of excrement phalanges for evil purposes. For instance, if someone comes over to see the baby that you are not particularly fond of and they do not get the hint to leave, you could threaten to touch them with your poo finger and chase them away. You could also use your poo finger to maliciously get back at someone by sticking your finger in their appetizers. You may even be able to rob someone on the street by using your poo finger as a weapon, but I don’t think you would get as far as to be able to use it to rob a bank or steal a car.

          The real talent comes when you have to open doors, move things around, or attempt to wash your dirty hand while also holding a baby that wiggles more than Jell-O during and earthquake. You don’t have to read the Center of Disease Control website to know that poo has any numerous bacteria present that you don’t want in other areas, such as your eyes or mouth. That is why you should become a professional at cleaning one hand while juggling a baby. This is all part of the special skills that one learns when they have children and one they don’t teach in most parenting books.

          You will need to learn how to do various tasks that you were able to do with two hands with only one hand, or possibly your only your teeth, such as turning on the sink faucet and grabbing the bar soap. You could always place your clean and happy child on a mat on the floor or in some other safe and comfortable place while you clean your poo finger (or if you are unskilled your poo hand/arm), but then you would run into another problem. Once you put your baby on the floor, he will inevitably poop again, but this time worse than before.

          The butt paste is zinc oxide from 5-40% and it protects his butt from the harsh weathers of poo and pee that are constantly flowing from his drainage system and in which he sits in for any number of hours throughout the day. The best way to apply the thick, brown paste is by squeezing a good sized blob on the finger, and then spreading it all over the butt and other areas that are down there to completely protect this most sensitive area and hope that you don’t get surprised by projectile feces when you are especially close to the large colon. The main problem with the butt paste is that after protecting your child from the evils of waste products, you have a finger that is covered in butt paste and possibly feces as well. You now have a poo finger. The real problem, is that you can’t leave the child to go and wash your hands, so you are forced to pick up the baby with a finger that has excrement on it, making sure that the one poo finger does not touch your baby, otherwise terrible bacteria could get on your child and he will grow up to be a mutant like on X-Men, though probably not a cool X-man, but one of the X-Men that the rest don’t want to hang out with.