A Jen Too Many

When I was a kid, getting a splinter was a traumatic affair, fraught with terror, filled with agony, heralded with much screaming and throwing myself around in hysteria. And it was all my father's fault.

I would go to unreasonable lengths to keep my parents from discovering I had a splinter. It didn't matter how big the splinter, or how much it hurt, anything was better than having them find out, because they would insist it came out. Immediately. I think there was talk about infection. I don't know for sure; that part of the whole thing is vague. What's clearest in my memories is The Pin.

My dad, as soon as he found out we had a splinter, would get out the matches, and get a pin from my mother's sewing supplies. He would light the match, then hold the pin in the flame for as long as he could, usually until the metal discolored. This was to sterilize it, he told us.

When the pin was properly sterilized, he would grab the part of our bodies (usually a hand) where the splinter was, and start digging. He had a grip of steel. It didn't matter how much you screamed, cried, and fought to get away, nothing was going to free you until Daddy let you go, and he wasn't doing that until the splinter was gone. He'd poke the pin into your skin where the splinter had entered, trying to catch the wood with the point of the pin, so that he could push / pull it out. If that didn't work he'd go to the other end of the splinter and try to push it out from there. If that still didn't work, he'd use the pin to start breaking through your skin over the splinter until enough splinter surface was exposed to let the pin get a good hold of it and pull it out.

I would have cheerfully allowed gangrene to set in and take a limb rather than have my oh so earnestly concerned father deal with even the simplest splinter.

When I had children, one of the first things I did was buy tweezers. I couldn't imagine why my parents had never thought to use tweezers to deal with splinters. It was so brilliant! So simple! So painfree!! My children, I thought smugly, would have all their splinters dealt with simply, quickly and pain-free. No pins for my family, no sirree.

Yeah. Right.

Just today I went through a familiar routine with Oldest Girl Child. (You could substitute Youngest Girl Child at any point in this and it would be just as valid.) She came in the house, sobbing, clutching her left hand at the wrist as she cradled it to her chest.

"Mommy!! I have a splinter! It hurts!!"

I got the tweezers.

"NOOOOOO!!!!!! NOT THE TWEEZERS!!!!"

I think her scream knocked a few squirrels out of the trees.

After a few tries, I coaxed her into letting me look at her hand. There was a very small splinter, almost too small to see, at the outer base of her thumb. I plucked at it with the tweezers, but couldn't grab anything with which to pull it out. I tried a couple of times before she grabbed her hand back.

"It hurts! Don't touch it! Get it out!"

We wound up soaking her hand for a while (30 seconds) in warm water with dissolved Epsom Salts. I don't know why Epsom Salts, except that it's what my parents used to do when they had a splinter they couldn't get out. I don't think it actually does anything, except make me feel better. I'm doing something! Not just standing there while my child sobs!

After about 30 seconds, OGC decided that it hurt to soak her hand in the water, so we gave up on that. After further negotiations it was decided that that magical cure-all, the cartoon character bandage, was the perfect solution to make it all better.

And off she went, happy again, ready to play.

It is so hard at these times not to say, "You know, when I was little ..."

In this era of HDTV and Blu-Ray, I am still stuck in the VHS age.

We only got our first DVD player a few years ago. Currently we have a VHS/DVD player that I stalked for months before snaring it in an after Christmas sale last year. Since then I've been trying to get all our old tapes recorded onto DVD. Just in time for DVD to go out of date. Of course.

I love technology. I just can't afford it.

In the course of transferring the tapes I ran across a tape my family made when I got home from my mission, 15 years ago. Wow!! What fun to watch that again. I'd forgotten I even had it.

Everyone looks sooo young. And two of us look much skinnier!

One of the things that startled me was how much Oldest Girl Child looks like her Aunt Cannwin. She's been reminding me awhile of my sister, but it wasn't until I saw this tape that I realized how striking the resemblance is. It's not just their looks, which are remarkably similar. They also move the same way. There were several gestures, especially, that Cannwin did on the tape that I see OGC do all the time.

That wasn't the only family resemblence. My youngest sister was a few years older than Youngest Girl Child at this point but there were several things she did that reminded me of YGC. Overall, there is a certain exuberance in both of their personalities that is very much the same.

I've got to figure out to take what I have and put it into a format I can email to all my siblings and our parents, so that everyone can have a copy of this. I think they'll have as much fun watching it as I did.

I don't know if it's a consequence of teaching the CTR 5 Primary class, having two small children in school, or The Boy Child working at the local grocery store (although it's probably the fiendish combination of all three) but I have been sick more often this last winter than I've been in years. It's all very annoying.

Last night, my visiting teacher called, wanting to set up an appointment for next week. I had been feeling worse and worse and all day, and by the time she called I had a raging headache and a fever. When she found out I was sick she was full of sympathy, and asked me, "Do you have anyone to take care of you?"

Take care of me? Huh?

No. No, I do not have anyone to take care of me. I'm the mom. I take care of other people, not the other way round. Now, her children are older than mine. Maybe some miracle happens over the next few years. Maybe one day I'll wake up sick and find my children gathered solicitously about me, yearning to take care of my poor sniffly self. But I doubt it. I certainly don't recall ever doing that for my poor mother.

Actually, I am finding lately that I tend to regard my parents somewhat in the same light that I regard my children. I obsess about their safety. I try to take care of them as best I can living this far away. If I don't hear from them for awhile I start to worry something terrible has happened and I have to grab hold of myself to keep from panicking.

The only difference in fact, is that my children are who I teach and prepare them for a wonderful (I hope) future; my parents are the treasure troves of my past who I'm afraid to lose. I care for my children to ensure their future happiness. I care for my parents to ensure my future happiness.

So as much as I'd like to think I've grown out of the selfish child who demands her parents' time and attention constantly, I must admit that I still want my mother when I get sick.

I find it way too easy to get out of the habit of blogging.

So, what's up with us?

• A major windstorm blew the screen door off our back door and knocked over our mailbox.
• I dug a new hole for the mailbox and put it back up. It has not yet fallen down (yay!) but needs more work done to make it completely stable.*
• Valentine's Day resulted in humongous amounts of candy - and that was just the loot from Oldest Girl Child's school party.
• Youngest Girl Child's preschool was canceled because of the windstorm. Her Valentine's Day party was rescheduled for this week, which will mean another load of candy coming home.
• A birthday party on Saturday upped the calorie count even more.
• We had a playdate with one of OGC's friends from school, today. We met at Burger King because the friend's mother wanted to meet me before letting her child come over here. Everything went well until the very end, when another set of children came in and started throwing ice and food around. We decided it was a good time to leave.