Snotty

My least favorite aspect of parenting is aspirating. It's really awful. You know you have to do this invasive procedure, first the saline and then the slurping of snot, so your child can breathe better, avoid festering mucus triggering an ear infection and not wake herself up in the night with a burble of snot -- but it just causes misery. Like vaccinations. They're just too young to understand the nasty needle is nothing compared to tuberculosis. Unlike most kids, Yelena doesn't mind me wipping her nose and even welcomes the warm washcloth, she just wails the second the drops go in her nose and sobs for a few minutes after the lines of goo are sucked out. Today the only thing that distracted her afterwards was going on the bouncy ball while listening the Jimmy Smith's The Cat. Thank God for Jimmy Smith.

Last Wednesday in music class a girl, who must have been making up from another class, was covered in nasal secretions. You know, the lava trickle of technicolor snot running between the crusted crags of booggers all down her face. Because it is just our luck, she seemed to like Yelena and kept waddling up to her. I thought, "Oh shit. We're in for it." Unfortunately, I am clarvoyant and Yelena had a very rough night of it Thursday and has been a bit congested ever since. I, too, have been just a bit out of sorts and now Eli is as well. Nothing dramatic, able to make it through the day and all, just not enough energy to go see the midnight showing of the Buffy musical Saturday night or muster the energy to sit through Die Fledermaus tonight. And last night I was out of it enough that when I was cleaning my Stack splint it fell down the drain. I even took out the sink trap (Super hero ID: Handy Girl. Or, perhaps: Klutz Girl?) but it had already gone to swim with the gators. Ugh.

Sleep now.