Operators Are Standing By!

After the paramedics paid us a visit last week, it got me thinking that maybe I should teach Ian and Julian how to dial 911. You know, just in case.

I have a running list of situations about which I obsess on the appropriate time and way to discuss them with the boys. Such as:

Child molesters?
Nobody is allowed to touch you except Mom, Dad, the nanny or your doctor. I'm waiting for a call the next time they are with my mother. I left her out.

Strangers?
If a stranger wants you to go with them, just yell "I don't know you!" really loud and run away. Especially if the person has a dog, candy, a white van or all three.

Fire?
That's an easy one: stop, drop and roll, ya'll!

How do babies get in mommy's tummy?
Magic.

How do babies get out of mommy's tummy?
Drugs.

So now that I've got those covered, on to 911.

"Guys, let's practice dialing 911!" I say one night after dinner.

I pick up the phone. They are ecstatic about any opportunity to push any kind of button that makes a noise, so they both dive in my direction when I offer them the phone. A tussle ensues. Fists are flying.

"OK, OK. Listen. 911 is for emergencies," I start. The houseplant on the end table is paying a lot of attention. The boys, not so much. "Do you know what an emergency is?"

"Yeah!" Ian screams, holding his brother by the hair. "If Juli won't share his toys with me."

"OK, thanks, but no." Maybe this is too early? No. So I launch into a litany of emergency types, including scary ones that this website tells you never to bring up. According to them, fire is fine to discuss, but unconscious parents and intruders should be casually left out. The 911 Kids Rap vaguely calls these a "circumSTANCE when you NEED the poLICE or an ambuLANCE."

But I hadn't gone to these websites yet when this conversation is happening...

"So guys, an emergency is like if something happens to Mom or Dad," they stop fighting. "Or, there's a fire, or someone breaks in."

"Like Iron Man?" Ian asks. He seems excited by this prospect.

"Sure, like Iron Man. Or anybody we don't know."

I hand Ian the phone. "So, Ian, without actually pressing the buttons, can you show me how you dial 911?"

"Why can't I press the buttons?"

"Because they'll get really mad if you call them for real and there's no emergency."

"Yeah, they might send the cops!" Julian adds.

Ian gives me this gotcha! look and I immediately realize my error. I've just handed Lou Reed a plate glass mirror with lines of cocaine on it and asked him not to snort. Ian starts pounding out, as instructed, but for real. Then a little voice comes through the phone.

"911. What's your emergency?" a voice in the phone asks. I grab the phone and hang up.

"Mom, why did you just hang up on that lady?" Ian asks.

"Yeah, they're gonna send the cops on you," Julian adds again.

I hop up, clap my hands together and invite them to brush their teeth. Lesson over. Julian slumps off into his room and flops on his bed.

"What's wrong with you?" I call to him.

"I'm just going to bed. All these emergencies are making me exhausted."


*

Retail Therapy

Something not so lovely happened to Ian on Valentine's Day.

While demonstrating how he could wedge both index fingers in his nostrils at the same time, he had a seizure. I swear I am not making this up. Maybe the episode will just be a cautionary tale to other young nose pickers. But in the moment, watching it, it sucked. Whites of the eyes, clenched body, locked jaw. My spastic 911 call. The whole gory show.

Ian was in the hospital for one day, tested for everything from color blindness to musical aptitude, and given a clean bill of health. Just go home, they said. Maybe it won't happen again.

This is the point in the story when I started contemplating recreational drug use. For myself. On Ian's first night home from the hospital, I crawl into bed behind his tired little body, his mouth sucking rabidly on that thing we used to know as a thumb. He is holding a small Transformer he picked out at Target after he was sprung from the big house. I lay close to him and start taking inventory.

"Ian, how does your heart feel?"

Thumb release: thawp. "My heart? Fine."

"How about your head?"

Thumb release: thawp. "Fine."

"How about your soul?" I had to ask this, as mine was pretty much in the shitter.

Thawp. "What's that?"

"It's that thing inside that feels heavy when you're sad or kind of jumpy when you're happy."

Ian stops sucking and fixes his eyes at a spot on the wall by his bed. He knows what I'm talking about. Poor thing, I'm thinking.

"My soul is sad."

Oh, no. "Why?"

"Because my soul didn't get the Lego city it also wanted at Target."

That'll teach me ...


*

God, I Begged You To Get Some Therapy

You know that look Sydney Pollack has on his face the moment he realizes that Dustin Hoffman, who plays his client, is dressed up as a woman to get an acting job? That look that says Oh my God, this isn't really happening. That look? Well, keep that look in your head as you read the following. I can only plea dumbstruck horror.

5:12 a.m. Ring ring ring. Hello, this is an automated message from the Hoboken Public Schools and today is Wednesday, February 2nd. Schools will be closed due to inclement weather. We know this is the third snowday in as many weeks and you only live in a 2-bedroom apartment with two wild boars, I mean boys, but deal.

6:04 a.m. Ring ring ring. Hello, this is the Cucaracha Charter School and today is Wednesday, February 2nd. Our school will be closed today due to inclement weather. Enjoy the snow! (This message is repeated in Spanish, which I listen to because it sounds like Penelope Cruz is calling to tell me there is a snow day.)

6:05 a.m. Mom? Mom? Can we have waffles can we have waffles can we have waffles?

6:08 a.m. Mom?

6:09 a.m. Just a minute. Let me wake up.

6:12 a.m. Mom? Are you awake yet?

6:15 a.m. Waffles hit the table. With butter. With syrup. Two waffles each. One cut into fours like 'pizzas' and the other cut in two like 'half moons.' Or else I'm toast.

6:21 a.m. Mom, we're done. Are we going to school today?

6:22 a.m. No, there's snow. No school.

6:26 a.m. Mom? We're bored?

6:27 a.m. How about some TV? What do you want to watch? I commence channel surfing.

6:28 a.m. Umm. This one. Points at screen during channel surf.

6:28 a.m. Cannibals of the Amazon?

6:29 a.m. Yeah yeah! Animals of the Caminstones! Yeah yeah! Mom? What are Caminstones?

6:30 a.m. I leave them with Animals of the Caminstones and return to bed, contemplating my escape. I have at least another 90 seconds before they ask for something else to do. And next time, it might not be so kid-friendly.