Daughter picks a fishy career

Parents often find themselves torn between wanting their children to hurry up and grow up or, the complete opposite, wishing we could freeze them at their current age.

My daughter has recently decided she wants to be a mermaid when she grows up. Apparently, the other children in her class mocked her future career decision and essentially labeled it “unattainable.” Little do they understand that she is too stubborn to allow popular opinion to influence her goals.

I find her dream adorable. When I was her age, I wanted to be a cheerleader. I never even got to dress as a cheerleader on Halloween. How pitiful is that?

Our family watched “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” one night and, lo and behold, there is a mermaid scene right in the middle of the movie! My little girl literally squealed with delight when she spied the beautiful fin-tailed maidens gliding through the ocean. She became giddy when she was trying to point out the one she thought she would most resemble as an adult when, all of a sudden, the innocent lady fish began a violent attack on the sailors!

Naturally, she wasn’t aware of the pirate tales of lore concerning mermaids and I guess I never paid much attention myself. In any case, we both decided she would be a nice mermaid rather than a wicked sea nymph.

I’m thinking she has maybe one or two more years before she outgrows her imagination which means we don’t have much time left if we want to take her on a trip to Weeki Wachee State Park, home of the live mermaid shows.

I showed her pictures of the performers online and she begged to go immediately. I called out to my husband, “Hey, honey, children five and younger are free admission!” This information sent her screaming through the house “I’m free! I’m free! I get to go for free!”

My good friend Wendy, who says I’m technically her second cousin’s wife’s daughter, offered to get my whole family in for free, but I didn’t want to burst the bubble of elation that had enveloped my darling angel, so I kept that quiet.

When she completed her laps around the inside of the house, she returned to view pictures of the mermaids and decide which was prettiest. This was when she saw the black hoses. “What are those tubes, mommy?”

“That’s so they can breathe underwater, sweetie,” I honestly replied.  She asked, “But why do they need those?”

I explained their need for oxygen which led to a disagreement about mermaids requiring the use of assistive air devices when she suddenly stopped and looked a little closer at the picture. She asked in her most distrustful voice, “Is that a costume?”

I sighed and confirmed her suspicion. I said that mermaids weren’t real, but it was fun to pretend. She said, “No, mommy. These mermaids aren’t real, but there are real mermaids. I still want to go see these mermaids.” With that declaration, she skipped away, her world still intact.

Her innocent imagination and the fuzz I saw growing on my eleven-year old son’s upper lip last week really makes me yearn for the power to freeze time. In case that doesn’t happen, I’ll keep taking these mental snapshots then document them for posterity, but I’d better laminate the pages. Mermaids don’t do well keeping things dry.

Displacement

The spring semester in nursing school has introduced my class to Mental Health which is a subject I have been eagerly anticipating for obvious reasons. From the very first day, I knew I’d gain insight into myself and begin enlightening everyone around me with their undiagnosed mental illnesses.

We already explored the ideas of Sigmund Freud, who really should be respected for his work in pioneering psychoanalysis, even if he did go a bit overboard with dream interpretation; at least, I hope he did, otherwise I’m in big trouble on the nocturnal wanderings front.

Freud’s daughter, Anna, discovered ego defense mechanisms. These are things we do to protect our minds from stress and anxiety. For instance, if something traumatic occurs, like a major accident, our brain will block it from our memory. This is called repression.

A defense mechanism I use frequently is displacement. This happens when a person or situation upsets you emotionally, but instead of releasing your true feelings at that point in time, you put a temporary cap on it and let the geyser explode later on some innocent victim.

I’m sure you can all think of a situation in your own lives when this has occurred. Maybe you had an argument with your spouse and then you pulled through a drive-thru and unleashed on the person who forgot to give you napkins. It happens to all of us, but I prefer to take my anger out on inanimate objects.

One of these incidents transpired on a day that I was running late, was stressed out, and Chris and I were at a tense point in our relationship. My hair dryer’s “on” button had been malfunctioning for a couple of weeks, but I could always force it to do my bidding. Not this day.

I jammed my thumb deep into the button for the 1000^th time and the dryer finally gave up. I knew the components were in good working order on the inside, it was just the button wire part not making the connection. Not for the last time, I thought to myself, “My dad repaired televisions, I’m sure I can figure this out.”

With time ticking away and my hair dripping wet, realization dawned on me that the dryer had won. I took the time to unplug it and securely wrap the cord around my right hand before I repeatedly slung the body of the dryer into the bathroom counter about a dozen times.

I smiled maniacally as little bits of plastic and wire guts flew around the bathroom, some landing in the toilet, some landing in my hair. In the end, it looked like an electronics equipment murder scene. All that was missing was a white chalk outline of a mangled hair dryer.

I walked into the hall and there stood Chris with a look on his face that was obviously asking the question “What happened in there?”

I calmly said, “My hair dryer broke.”

Years later, I witnessed my mom murder a phone. It was a land-line phone with a faulty cord and I watched her methodically stab the handset into its cradle until the phone was good and dead. I realized then that there must be a genetic predisposition to killing inanimate objects.

I’ve broken scores of other things in my life: glasses, lamps, pictures, an umbrella, a chair, but I’ve never physically hurt another person. Trust me, if you feel like you’re going to let loose on someone, go find a hair dryer and a concrete block. You’d be surprised how therapeutic it can be.

Feed at your own risk

At least once or twice a year, a media report surfaces about an incident involving a store employee clashing with a mother who is in the process of publicly breastfeeding her infant. I’ve always felt fairly neutral on the subject seeing as how I’m not outraged over the fact that women have the option of feeding their infants via lactation, nor am I grossed out over this perfectly natural function of the human body. If I were, I guess I’d rethink the idea of Registered Nursing as a future career.

Normally, I have tunnel vision when I’m shopping and I am easily distracted by flashing lights and bright colors, so unless a woman is breastfeeding her child under a strobe-lit sign that says “99% OFF,” then I’m probably not likely to notice her or her baby at all.

Before I had my son, I would, on the rare occasion, catch a glimpse in my peripheral vision of a mother nursing her baby. It was always being conducted in a very discreet manner and seemed like a sweet, tender moment that I had inadvertently intruded upon. At the time, I always wondered if I would have the courage to do the same with my own child someday.

My questions were answered soon after my bundle of emotion-fueled testosterone entered the world and staked his claim on my body’s schedule. What I had imagined would be a pleasant bonding experience turned into a nightmarish episode right out of a horror movie.

Babies have what is called a rooting reflex. This happens when you lightly brush the side of their cheek and their body receives the signal that it’s time for some maternal-aided nourishment so they turn their head towards wherever the source of food will most likely be. My son’s reflex was set off by the wind, my voice, or just lying horizontal.

When it was time to eat, he would come at me like a rabid octopus with his arms flailing wildly around his head, grasping at anything in reach. If I tried to cover us with a blanket, he’d rip it off and throw it to the floor. His head would whip back and forth while he grunted and snorted like a starving pig. His tiny baby fingers would scratch and claw at the skin on my chest. It was like trying to feed an agitated badger.

Even while nursing, he’d growl and grunt while squeezing my hand in a tight baby death grip. Sometimes, he’d stare up at me with one eye like he was making sure I wasn’t going to run away in the middle of his meal. It wasn’t as precious as it was creepy. Needless to say, I never attempted public breastfeeding because of his antics.

My daughter was another story. She’d calmly open her mouth in a small “O” and wait until the proper position was attained. Then she’d politely fold her hands together and quietly finish her feeding in relative peace.

Even though I could’ve nursed her in Walmart, I never did. Call me modest, but I found it more tranquil to schedule shopping trips around my children’s needs. I still try to do that even though they are now strictly self-fed by hand.

So if you’re a new mom who is considering attempting this slightly controversial yet totally natural method of feeding your new baby, heed my warning:  public breastfeeding should be conducted only with a cooperative child; otherwise, people will think you are trying to smuggle a frightened possum under your shirt.

Countdown to domestic disaster

“Stop being unnecessarily annoying!”

 I actually said this to my children in the hopes that a flicker of understanding would penetrate through their auditory canals and into their brains for immediate processing. Needless to say, it didn’t work. I think it may have had something to do with the wording, but it made me start thinking about children annoyance levels and the need for a universal standardized scaling system. In my own estimation, there are at least six steps in this process.

The first would be “under the radar.” This is where I chose to conduct most of my kid-time operations, but my own progeny lack the element of subtlety. If they ever figure out how much unnoticed trouble they could create at this stage, I might begin to get worried. In the meantime, they act more like crazed chimps wearing cow-bells while shouting “LOOK AT ME!” through a megaphone, so I’m not real concerned about them being sneaky.

The second level would be an acceptable or minor infraction. This would result in a single word correction from a parent like “Stop” or “No.” The child would listen and go about their business with no further action needed. I may as well call this the imaginary level because I never see this happen in my house.

The third is the aforementioned “unnecessary annoyance” which, on this particular day, consisted of the children’s insistence on sharing the love seat. There are five seating choices in our living room, but they continually choose the one option that possesses a high probability rate for an accidental leg or feet touching episode; bickering results and the progression of annoyance exacerbation continues on its natural course.

Level four leads them into imminent danger. This usually happens when the whole family is in the car together for more than 30 minutes which puts us all in an uncomfortable type of extended close proximity. The children can’t handle the pressure and take their angst out on each other which sends a ripple effect of aggravation to the front section of the vehicle. This level has the potential to be rapidly reduced to a level one or two by suddenly pulling over to the side of the road, preferably in a dramatic fashion so as to elicit the maximum fear response from the kids.

Level five causes severe parental irritation. As a mom, this is when my body starts producing involuntary reactions like eye twitching, slurring of words, sudden-onset potty mouth, and calling one child by their sibling’s name or, even better, the dog’s name. The worst thing they could possibly do at this point is laugh in which case, level six becomes fully engaged.

Level six should actually be called “DEFCON 1” because there is maximal force readiness on the part of the parental unit. This danger zone would necessitate immediate evacuation of any child from the parent’s visual field if they knew what was good for them. Usually, they either don’t know what’s good for them or aren’t aware enough to care and opt to stand around looking confused concerning what is about to happen and surprised that they had anything at all to do with it.

Thankfully, the kids are back in school after their recent winter break which is probably a good thing for all of us. We haven’t reached level six in almost 5 days which is pleasantly refreshing. If they stay on their present course, my body’s internal chemical balance should be fully restored by next Friday.