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June 20, 2005
Dirty rat
My kid got bit by a rat yesterday. Hi! How are you? My kid got bit by a rat. Yes, that’s right, a rat.
Man, do I feel like a craptastic parent. Yesterday we plumbed the depths of bad parenting, bottom-fed there for a spell, and then took it even lower. A rat! How low can you go, exactly?
The day began nicely enough; the Bean and me gaily shaking sprinkles onto cupcakes we baked. My husband was upstairs enjoying a Father’s day sleep-in. All that changed when the Bean toddle-ran into the living room, tripped over his own feet, and fell head-first into a table corner. With toddlers, there are falls and then there are Falls. Right away, I knew it was a Fall. Before I even got to him, I saw blood pooling beside him on the floor. I summoned by first aid training (ha) and started screaming “Emergency! Emergency…WITH BLOOD!”
I suck in emergencies. I thought I’d be better because I’ve always had an interest in the medical arts, but not, apparently, when they involve things HAPPENING to my CHILD causing blood to fill his eye sockets, cascade down his face and puddle on the floor. My husband came running down the stairs yelling “It’s okay, he’s going to be okay” and even as I hyper-ventilated, I was thinking how does he fricking know he hasn’t even seen him! but I was also glad because I needed to hear that even if it wasn’t true or I was going to pass out. We mopped up the blood, put the kid in the bath (seriously, there was so much blood), and administered ice packs and pressure while I tried to rope it in. Happy Father’s day! Would you like a cupcake?
Then later we had a fight about me not really wanting to go to some guy’s house for dinner because I’d never met him and it was, after all, Father’s day not Dinner with Some Fishing Guy and his Bitchy Girlfriend day. We finally went after much, um, debate. The couple had a huge cage with Habitrail-y type things in it on the kitchen floor and I’m like, oh look they have a critter! And Bitchy Girlfriend says, yeah that’s our rat and he is mean and he bites everything. You could tell she liked the rat way more than she liked us for some dumb reason, especially when we were trying to be normal and polite and ask questions about their stupid house and the vermin within.
We ate dinner with the rat about three feet from the table and then Fishing Guy said “Watch me feed the rat!” and gave the rat some chicken. The Bean pressed his little hand against the cage while watching and WHAMMO that rat was on him like rat on chicken. I’ve never heard a child scream that loud and it sucked.
Why my parent-radar, which is usually on Maximum Overdrive, didn’t insist the getting the damn rat out of the kitchen I don’t know. I was in a weakened parenting state I think, what with all the other stuff. The only good thing about was that I was able to shoot terrible, terrible laser eyes unfettered at the Bitchy Girlfriend as we packed up our screaming child and left in a flurry of maybe-needing-to-go-to-the-ER.
I hope other people had better Fathers’ days than we did and that there were no head injuries, verbal fisticuffs, or long-tailed, sharp-toothed rodents involved. That is my wish to you.
Posted by Max at June 20, 2005 10:01 PM
Comments
the girlfriend is the one who should be feeling craptastic!! why on earth wouldn't you remove a pet like that if you were having people over for dinner and they were bringing a toddler? good grief!!
Posted by: jen at June 21, 2005 03:05 PM
So this is the sort of adventures i have to look forward to with parent hood hay, no sleeping in on fathers day
check out our pregnancy blog
www.markwyld.blogspot.com
Posted by: Mark at June 22, 2005 10:04 PM