I had never before had the strange experience of listening to a congested six week old cry and cough loose the mucous in his lungs. When the six-week-old is your son, it’s an especially dramatic moment. It’s not easy for him. He wakes from a long nap with all that stuff settled in there, and he becomes more and more active as he tries to move it out. It’s tiring work. I can tell he’s getting somewhere when he stops to force it back down, this time through the esophagus. Last night after waking from a nap and cleaning house the best he could, Drew was fed some of the magic stuff that mom pumped and froze the week after giving birth. This is the fatty, thick, golden milk that is stored on the far right of the freezer door. As the timeline proceeds to the left, the frozen bags turn more and more white. I thought that some of the milk nature intended for a one week old might have special healing powers. The stuff mom is producing now probably includes antibodies to whatever Drew has, so perhaps I took the wrong approach. Either way, feeding him out of the bottle in his current condition allows us to see how much he’s getting and only give him as much as he can handle. I think we will be in good shape as long as this doesn’t persist too much longer or get any worse. We never had to go through anything like this with Syd because she didn’t have any older siblings to share germs.
I read about an interesting controversy today in The Times. This year’s Newbery Medal winner, “The Higher Power of Lucky,” which is intended for 9 to 12 year olds, contains the word “scrotum.” Per The Times, “The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum. “Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”” I can understand the discomfort with having to read this passage to a group of students and answer questions about it. I can also understand the discomfort of being a fourth grader sitting in a coed classroom and having to discuss it. But I don’t understand a vocal, misguided minority trying to keep this book out of libraries so that no one can read it. Wouldn’t the sensible solution be to not include it in the curriculum (because it might not be appropriate for everybody), but make it available in the library (because it is not inappropriate for everybody)? This book exists just as surely as a dog’s scrotum. Maybe the best thing we can do is act like adults about it and set a good example for our children. Children are smarter than most people realize. If they sense your hysteria when you hear the correct term for a body part, they will be repeating it constantly (especially in front of your prudish fundamentalist bible study group).
Something about spring training having started and the springlike day we had yesterday after such a cold spell made me think of baseball cards. Spring is a weird time of year anyway in this part of the country. We get so much snowfall that there are still huge piles of the stuff in April when you’re riding around on your bicycle in a light jacket. It was that type of day that reminded me that in my childhood, this was the time of year that my anticipation of the new baseball cards coming out would start to build. It was always such a huge deal the first time we “saw what they looked like.” The design that Topps came up with was one that we would be stuck with all summer, and in fact for the rest of our lives. I can look at any baseball card from 1979 through 1990 and tell you the year it was printed. Some years looked nicer than others, but in the end it didn’t matter, because any new edition meant that my hobby had been born again. Everything about it was a joy. Riding my bike to Mesmer’s or CVS to buy a few packs, riding home with them unopened, opening them up in my garage, sorting them, resorting them, resorting them, looking through them again, and absorbing every nuance of the front and back. Then we traded them. Me and my friend Paul, with few exceptions, traded baseball cards with each other almost exclusively. It’s hard to imagine that only two trading partners could generate so much activity, but somehow we did. For instance, I would ask him every day if he was willing to trade his Wade Boggs rookie card, and he would say no. Finally after weeks or months he would relent, and we would strike a blockbuster deal. Mind you, I don’t have Wade Boggs’ rookie card now; I eventually ended up trading it back to him.
It’s a shame that my son probably won’t share that same part of his childhood. Baseball cards cost too much money. I could get 15 cards for about thirty cents. Packs are smaller now and cost a few dollars each. It used to be pure fun. Now it’s marketed as an investment. One more thing adults have ruined.
Sometimes when I’m in a drugstore, I will reflexively look to see if there are any baseball cards on the counter, especially at this time of year. I will still buy a few packs every year “to see who I get.” It’s something they always say about springtime and baseball – hope springs eternal.
I read about an interesting controversy today in The Times. This year’s Newbery Medal winner, “The Higher Power of Lucky,” which is intended for 9 to 12 year olds, contains the word “scrotum.” Per The Times, “The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum. “Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”” I can understand the discomfort with having to read this passage to a group of students and answer questions about it. I can also understand the discomfort of being a fourth grader sitting in a coed classroom and having to discuss it. But I don’t understand a vocal, misguided minority trying to keep this book out of libraries so that no one can read it. Wouldn’t the sensible solution be to not include it in the curriculum (because it might not be appropriate for everybody), but make it available in the library (because it is not inappropriate for everybody)? This book exists just as surely as a dog’s scrotum. Maybe the best thing we can do is act like adults about it and set a good example for our children. Children are smarter than most people realize. If they sense your hysteria when you hear the correct term for a body part, they will be repeating it constantly (especially in front of your prudish fundamentalist bible study group).
Something about spring training having started and the springlike day we had yesterday after such a cold spell made me think of baseball cards. Spring is a weird time of year anyway in this part of the country. We get so much snowfall that there are still huge piles of the stuff in April when you’re riding around on your bicycle in a light jacket. It was that type of day that reminded me that in my childhood, this was the time of year that my anticipation of the new baseball cards coming out would start to build. It was always such a huge deal the first time we “saw what they looked like.” The design that Topps came up with was one that we would be stuck with all summer, and in fact for the rest of our lives. I can look at any baseball card from 1979 through 1990 and tell you the year it was printed. Some years looked nicer than others, but in the end it didn’t matter, because any new edition meant that my hobby had been born again. Everything about it was a joy. Riding my bike to Mesmer’s or CVS to buy a few packs, riding home with them unopened, opening them up in my garage, sorting them, resorting them, resorting them, looking through them again, and absorbing every nuance of the front and back. Then we traded them. Me and my friend Paul, with few exceptions, traded baseball cards with each other almost exclusively. It’s hard to imagine that only two trading partners could generate so much activity, but somehow we did. For instance, I would ask him every day if he was willing to trade his Wade Boggs rookie card, and he would say no. Finally after weeks or months he would relent, and we would strike a blockbuster deal. Mind you, I don’t have Wade Boggs’ rookie card now; I eventually ended up trading it back to him.
It’s a shame that my son probably won’t share that same part of his childhood. Baseball cards cost too much money. I could get 15 cards for about thirty cents. Packs are smaller now and cost a few dollars each. It used to be pure fun. Now it’s marketed as an investment. One more thing adults have ruined.
Sometimes when I’m in a drugstore, I will reflexively look to see if there are any baseball cards on the counter, especially at this time of year. I will still buy a few packs every year “to see who I get.” It’s something they always say about springtime and baseball – hope springs eternal.
No comments:
Post a Comment