Vicious, You Hit Me With A Flower

(Cross-posted from F16's Don't Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People)

I'm still alive; though I have a severe cold that has me thinking I may be teetering near death. It seems to last a couple of days at its worst, and then hang in there with some additional yuckiness to kick your butt. Yesterday, at what about the worst of my cold (and Danny's) we run up to the store for a couple of items (soft tissues, anyone?) and Danny manages to knock his head in the same exact spot he'd klunked it a few hours earlier (on the corner of the dining room table). Now seriously, what are the odds? I swear it must be something in my family as I once broke my arm twice in the same day. * Well, they say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (and if it does, its sure to break an arm or bruise its noggin).

It was probably the fluorescent lights in the place, but the goose egg was looking pretty terrible, so off we went to the small country hospital down the street…that had closed that very day. They never did say when the new building would be opening, but as we discovered as we drove down the road to the lavish new digs-yesterday was the first day of business, and Danny the first patient. I dunno, he should get a plaque or something, don't you think?

Mind you, I was a wreck seeing his forehead turn purple, but the child was in positively wonderful spirits. He'd been to his paediatrician the day prior for an earache, so he was ready to instruct the doctor where to put the stethoscope and how to find the penguins in his ears. Every doctor jokes with children about something in their ears when they have a look. Be it puppy dogs, potatoes, what have you, it must be something they teach in medical school as a way to distract children. My son, he's particular about what resides in his ears and corrected both doctors promptly about the contents therein. What can I say, my boy is partial to penguins and a good thing too as they tend to hide in my bed and stockpot. It's true. They get everywhere. Now me? I'm awful shy of penguins-just don't like them a bit, so my son checks my bed for me, looking beneath the covers and pillows making sure they aren't hiding. Sometimes, they like to hide in my big stockpot so he will step in, lift the lid and yell "hey you guys, mama said to beat it", so I can proceed with whatever I was doing. Right, so if there's anything in the kid's ears, odds are pretty good it is penguins.

When my little chatterbox sees the doctor walk in (whom they had to page at home to come in-I told you it was a small town) she was still wearing sweats and a t-shirt with a motorcycle on it which led to my son exclaiming "The lady doctor is wearing a motorcycle shirt". Everyone thought this was adorable save perhaps for the doctor who probably has had more than her share of "lady" comments over the years from less innocent mouths. She looked him over, said he looked fine and didn't want to stick us with a big bill for unnecessary x-rays. We had our list of things to watch for and did the waking-up every four hours just in case of concussion. He's fine. Between poking himself in the eye with a fly swatter and this, I'm ready to make the kid wear a helmet and kneepads around the clock. I don't know what I'm going to do when he's older and wants a skateboard or something.

Most kids, when they're not feeling well get sort of sullen and quiet, but Danny just becomes more of a chatterbox than usual and sometimes begins singing and making up songs. It's cute how he can take the melody of Ode To Joy and add words until he's singing (not making this up, dear God, I wish I were)

…They have drills and
Vacuum cleaners
All of the things I really like
Cause I like to go to Shop-Ko
When I sing the Ode To Shop-Ko.

He does that. I suppose everyone does, to a certain degree when we can't remember the words. Sometimes you just get the lyrics wrong like my husband who always thought Bad Moon On The Rise was "There's A Bathroom On The Right" (apparently, that's a common mis-understood lyric). I sing to Danny quite a bit, and whenever we go out in the car, we listen to my old cassette tapes. One of my son's very favourite tapes is part of a multi cassette set of Lou Reed recordings that cover the stuff from Velvet Underground up through the mid-80's, all the songs you'd expect like Caroline Sez, Satellite Of Love, Sweet Jane. The one that my kid just adores is "Vicious" because he thinks the chorus is funny:
"Vicious, you hit me with a flower
You do it every hour,
Oh baby you're so vicious."

OK, not the best recording on the tape, but I don't mind re-winding and playing it again and again for him. With any luck, one of these days it will break and I'll be back to listening to Richard Hell's version of Chinese Rock.

As I already pointed out, the child likes to sing and when he's not feeling his best, we're apt to hear him sitting back in his room playing with matchbox cars and singing. As a parent, this is great because I sort of know what he's doing without going all the way to the other end of the house to check every five minutes. He has a short bookcase that he likes to line up all his little cars atop and play with them. I'm not sure what brought me back there, but I hear him singing Vicious, only he's changed the lyrics to:

Vicious, you gave your mama headaches
You do it every hour
Oh baby you're so vicious…vicious…vicious



*When I was in preschool we took a field trip to some park with a very large slide and I broke my arm falling off at the bottom. The teacher did not believe I was hurt (I seem to recall her waving it around to prove to me it was not broken) so the trip continued. On the way back to the school, we had to stop at one of the children's houses to see a bird's nest in the doorway. We all trudged up the front steps to see the bird's nest and I was knocked backward down the steps where I fell a second time on the broken arm. This had lead to years of jokes about breaking my arm in two places, literally.