my lovely freak

We went to cookouts last weekend and even though we had fun it was a new kind of fun that’s very different from the old fun where we’d sit in the sun eating grill food and watermelon and drinking enough beer to make the heat of the sun and the screaming of children tolerable. Now that we’re parents, we have to be more alert, more active and definitely more sober at cookouts. And a couple of times over the weekend while I was sweating through my clothes during hour two of chasing my son around on the lawn trying to keep him from killing himself on the various hazards in a strange new yard, I’d gaze over at the group of childless people sitting off to the side, drinking their beers and talking about adult things without a care in the world, and feel jealous of their relaxation.

During Sunday’s festivities Joey spiked a fever and took on the look of a baby zombie complete with glassy eyes and lifeless body. All he wanted to do was recline on my lap, whimper pathetically and sweat. This is a good tip for anyone new to this parenting thing: children do not build up to an illness, it strikes them down like lightning. One minute your kid could be laughing and having a great time and then suddenly they’re whining and feverish and dripping snot all over their clothes. And as all first time parents will do, you will immediately conjure horrible visions in your head of terrifying illnesses like meningitis or bird flu and completely overlook the possibility that your child may just be suffering from a simple cold.

After I took Joey’s temperature and saw that it was a blood boiling ONE HUNDRED AND TWO DEGREES I immediately wanted to pack him up in the car (on ice) and take him to the nearest emergency room. He needed IVs, and antibiotics, and urgent medical care to keep his brain from boiling out of his tiny head! Luckily there were some veteran moms at the cookout who were able to convince me to give him some Tylenol and a cool washcloth and see if that helped before calling for lifeflight.

Joey slept that night for 14 hours and woke up cool and happy. So we packed him up and took him to another cookout on Monday.

Monday’s party was a little different because there was a wading pool and that meant SWIMMING! Well, it would have meant swimming if not for the unpleasant experience Joey had on his way to the pool. He was ready. He was wearing a special swimming diaper, little swim trunks, a hat to protect his head and a good coating of sunblock over every bit of exposed skin. He was ready to rock the surf…except that when I went to put him down on the edge of the lawn, the second he touched the grass, his feet recoiled and he clung to me screaming as though I’d set him down on broken glass. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on and why he had his arms wrapped so tightly around my neck I could feel my brain starting to die from lack of oxygenated blood. I screamed at Eli, “Why is he trying to choke me???” And Eli knew exactly what had happened. “He doesn’t like the grass on his feet.”

We did a few experiments. We put him down, he whimpered and clawed at our legs until we picked him up again. We tried a new spot, same thing. Over and over again it happened and then another kind veteran mom revealed to me yet another secret about toddlers: “Some kids just don’t like the feel of grass on their feet.”

And in my mind I’m thinking, yeah, but they’re the weird sensitive kids. The kids who can’t stand the pressure of clothing against their skin, are allergic to gluten and wear special diapers because their skin reacts violently to absorbent paper. My kid is the least sensitive thing going. He chews rocks. He eats food licked by other kids. He drinks his own BATH WATER!

So rather than freaking out at the cookout, I just accepted that Joey was not going to stand in the grass, so I let him cling to me and watch the other kids play in the pool. But then this morning I decided to get some reliable advice about this grass feel disorder, just to see what I’m dealing with and so I went to the place I always go when I’m looking for solid medical information. I looked it up on google.

The first place that popped up was a site about Dabrowski’s Over-Excitables that made me even more sure that my child is a big freak. And to prove my theory, when I glanced into the living room this morning while I was researching, I saw Joey in there hanging off the side of the couch watching Sesame Street and sucking on one of my Sex and the City DVDs.

Rather than stroke out over some webpage information that may not even be reliable in the first place, I decided to immediately start with some sensitivity training. I would strip Joey’s feet and put him outside in the grass. I was determined to approach the problem with behavioral modification before I found myself with a child who can’t go to the beach, can’t stand on grass, can’t have a strong breeze on his face without flipping into hysterics. I would simply place him in the grass and we would work on it until his fear went away.

The whole task took less than one second. I put him down in the grass and he took off, never once looking back. He played in the grass with his naked feet for an hour and I’ve concluded that he is not sensitive to grass.

I wish he could talk well enough to let me know what his problems are because all this guessing is making me twitchy. Maybe it was the pool. Maybe the idea of a bathtub on the lawn blew his mind.