CSI Pittsburgh

On Sunday afternoon I was folding clothes in the master bedroom when I heard Jacob bounding up the stairs.

“Mom, I have a bug bite!”

He turned around and I could see a big welt on his back, right above his tailbone. It was reddish orange in the middle with a ring of white skin, and then more red skin around the white skin. It looked like a bite all right. A SPIDER BITE. Josh thought so too. He got some first aid items from the bathroom.

I started Googling “brown recluse spider bite” and “images.” The pictures that came up on my phone were pictures of rotted flesh—bites that had festered and become black in the middle. Pictures out of a horror movie.

Jacob screamed out in pain. I looked over and Josh was dabbing rubbing alcohol on his bite. Obviously, it hurt.

I Googled “home remedies for insect bites.” I saw references to honey, baking soda, meat tenderizer (which we didn’t have) and vinegar. I ran downstairs and made up a little batch of home remedy, and I used Cream of Tartar for the meat tenderizer. Josh and I applied some to Jacob’s back. “Ouch,” Jacob cried. The bite was getting worse by the minute.

But then I thought: I’ve never seen a brown recluse spider in our house. Or anywhere in Pittsburgh. Or anywhere in my life. On the other hand, we were suffering from a bit of a STINK BUG invasion. So I Googled “Stink bug bite” and “images.” One site said “orange-reddish bites are made by the stink bug.” It sure looked orangish-red to me and Josh.

I called Poison Control.

“I think my son has been bitten by a STINK BUG."

“No ma’am,” replied my Poison Control operator. “Stink bugs are members of the (gobbledygook scientific word here) family, and those insects don’t bite.”

So it was back to the hypothesis that it was a BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER bite. Or maybe it was a BLACK WIDOW SPIDER. Or maybe just a wasp, or a bee.

I decided to ask Jacob a few questions:

“Jacob, do you remember getting the bite? Did it feel like you were pricked, or pinched?”

“No.”

“Do you remember seeing any bugs around when it happened?”

“No.”

“Do you remember hearing the sound of bugs flying? Like a bee?”

“No.”

Finally, I did what any mom would do. I called a very skilled dermatologist who lives in Seattle. And who is my sister. And I described Jacob’s very large, swollen spider bite to her.

“Hmmmm…..” she said. “Send me some pictures.”

I took some pictures of Jacob’s giant bug bite on the front porch, where we could get some natural light. I transferred the pictures to the computer. I Googled a few more species of spider bites images. Yuck. I attached my photographs to an email for my sister and clicked “Send.”

Then some friends came over and Jacob seemed better and I forgot all about the pictures and my sister and my phone. About an hour later I found my phone and checked my messages. There was one from my sister.

“Call me,” she said. It sounded serious. So I called her back.

“I don’t think it’s an insect bite,” Brenda said.

“You don’t?”

“I think it’s a rug burn.” Brenda used very precise medical language to explain her reasoning. We talked a bit more about how to care for the wound, and then we hung up. I found Jacob.

“Jacob, Aunt Brenda thinks your bug bite might be a rug burn. Is that possible?”

“Sure," he said. I was playing on the rug out here earlier tonight.” Jacob got down on the front porch rug to demonstrate. He laid down on his back and kicked his feet up into the air. “And I felt something on my back, above my shorts.”

“Did it feel like a rug burn?”

Jacob shrugged his shoulders. "It felt kind of like something was burning me on my back. Right here." He pointed to his back, where the wound was.

IT WAS A RUG BURN. THE MYSTERY WAS SOLVED!!!!!

As I went to bed Sunday night I thought about how lucky I was to have a dermatologist for a sister! Thanks Brenda, for solving the mystery of the DEADLY BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER BITE that was JUST A RUG BURN!

Are You Afraid of the Nose Goblin? You Should Be!

My sister, the real Dr. Newman, sent this missive from the Northwest about a new trick she invented to scare her kids into not picking their noses!

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So. It was getting late and I was trying to get the kids settled into bed. Ayar (pronounced A-yah) was picking her nose and innocently rubbing boogers all over the bed/parents.

Thoughtlessly, I said:

"Ayar, you better stop picking your nose or the nose goblin will come"...But then of course i had to explain what the nose goblin was.

So I said:

"Didn't you know that the nose goblin (who is very tiny) sits on the window sill looking for children who are picking their noses? If he finds them, he waits till they fall asleep and then he crawls inside their noses and eats the boogers?"

Ayar did not say anything for a long time. Her dad said her face shrunk down to the size of a pea. Then she said.....very quietly:

"Mom...I will never pick my nose again".

But nor will she ever fall asleep for fear of the nose goblin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good job mom!

PS: I blame Kathy for the image of the Belly Popper which was embedded deep in my psyche!!!

PPS: Zarni seemed to enjoy this image-- even weirder!!

Going Overboard on Birthdays: Guilty as Charged

If you know me you have heard me complain about the modern child's birthday party. I am often overwhelmed by what I call the "potlatch" birthday, in which all the kids in a class are invited, plus all siblings and parents. Often these are held at a large indoor venue, like a play space, or a shopping mall bounce house arena. While I always enjoy attending these birthday parties---nothing like taking my kids to a giant bouncer on a rainy Saturday afternoon and chowing down on cake and pizza, it often seems to be that the birthday child gets a bit overshadowed in the mayhem. Of course I have hosted a potlatch birthday (for Jacob's 4th birthday, in Nashville), and I know where the impetus comes from; it comes from not wanting to exclude anyone---and from no wanting to have one's child navigate the complicated terrain of hurt feelings around inviting, not-inviting, etc. It also comes from just wanting to go all out. It can be cool to host a party like this!

But as much as I am a critic of how birthdays get celebrated, it appears that I am also a perpetrator of overdoing it. For Casey's birthday this year we started with a celebration on the day itself that involved birthday waffles, opening birthday presents, and about 2 hours of self-imposed purgatory a Chuck E. Cheese.







But Josh couldn't be there a Chuck E. Cheese, so the day after Casey's birthday we participated in the Cyert tradition of the "birthday walk." This is a cool tradition. Casey chooses a "birthday committee." Those kids find out the destination of her walk, and then make a map of the walk, with stops that might be important to the Birthday child. Then the whole class goes on the walk, with the child's parents usually in tow.



Josh's office is a very walkable distance from Cyert center, so Casey's birthday committee charted a path to and from Josh's office. Jacob was off for spring break, so he came along with us.



We left about 10:00 AM and walked down a very busy Fifth avenue, past the Mr. Rogers dinosaur, and to Josh's office in Webster Hall. I brought some cookies that I remembered having as a kid; they are a "no bake" cookie made of oatmeal, butter, milk, cocoa, peanut butter, etc., whipped up on the stove top, because our bake element burned out last month (a long term consequence of what I am now calling the Curse of the Meatloaf Mummy, which you can read about here).

The walk was cold and windy, but the kids spirits were high, and it was adorable to see about 20 kids file into Josh's conference room.



There I read a book called A Flock of Shoes, which is about what happens to your favorite seasonal shoes when you are not wearing them (apparently they fly about and take trains and send you postcards). The kids loved the cookies and the story, and then we headed back to Cyert.



On SATURDAY we had Casey's official birthday party, which was a princess themed party. I'm actually the one who pushed the princess theme because I found this adorable doll castle made of cardboard that I thought would make a great party centerpiece. The 4 girls who were coming to the party NOT ONLY had princess garb to wear to the princess party; many of them had MORE THAN ONE princess dress to choose from. The girls looked adorable.



We also had an Easter egg hunt with plastic eggs decorated with princess themed images (from Oriental Trading) and a cake from Josh's favorite french bakery in Millvale.





The party went off pretty well, though there was some in-fighting amongst the princesses over wands and eggs filled with candy.





Casey acted a bit spoiled and bossy, which is understandable, but perhaps also the result of this being the third or fourth celebration of her birthday in just under a week.

THEN after the party was over Josh took Casey shopping for her birthday wish, which was a pair of Sketcher tennis shoes. She also picked out some clothes which are beyond cute.






At the end of it all we were all pretty tired. And especially Casey. I don't know what to make of this week of over-celebration; it was brought on, in part, by the fact that I had the week off from work, so I had extra energy to devote to the party. But I guess I have to admit that I am part and parcel of my demographic. I am just as prone to spending too much money and energy on a child's party....with the great likelihood of this being a party that Casey won't even remember!

I think this over celebrating comes from a genuine desire to celebrate our children, and to show our love and admiration. But am I also trying to show off? I'm not sure. What do you remember about celebrating your birthday as a child?

Slot Machines for the Elementary School Set

I hate Chuck E. Cheese. It's a dark, dirty soulless casino for young children. If you have never been there, let me explain. You buy tokens for the price of about a quarter a piece. Every video game at Chuck E. Cheese costs one token. You and your children can easily blow through $20.00 worth of tokens in 45 minutes.

Then, when you play the video games you get a string of tickets, depending on how well you do at the games. And at the end of your gambling time at Chuck E. Cheese, you and your children turn in your tickets for the cheapest, lamest, tiniest toys you can imagine. 200 tickets will get you two tiny tooky plastic tops, an orange plastic spider, and 3 Smarties. Whoopee. All of that for maybe $15.00 or $20.00 spent in tokens. And the children act like Santa Claus just brought them a brand new bike.

Oh, and let me go on about how much I hate Chuck E. Cheese. The one I went to recently only played Justin Bieber the whole time I was there. If you don't know who Justin Bieber is then there is nothing I can do for you. And there are TV screens everywhere you look, in every corner, playing a stultifying mix of music videos and Nickelodeon TV shows. And have I mentioned the food? The pizza is overpriced and is greasy enough to pollute the Gulf.

Jacob and Casey have been begging us, and I mean BEGGING us for a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party for the last year. After Jacob's AWESOME inner tube birthday party I asked him, wasn't that better than Chuck E. Cheese? And he answered, in a word, "no."

So my compromise was to take Jacob and Jacob’s friend Conner and Casey and Casey’s friend Julia to Chuck E. Cheese for a few hours on Casey's birthday. And that would be, I hoped, the last I would hear of the Chuck E. Cheese wailing, screaming, and begging.

It was a good strategy, for all of us. Casey and Julia needed the most help and supervision; they needed a boost up on the lamest carousel of all time, and help with the toddler "video games." Jacob and Conner disappeared into the older kid area. Occasionally I would find one of them, glassy eyed, trying to beat their own record on a video game.

I had two incredibly low moments at Chuck E. Cheese. The first was when Chuck E. Cheese, in the flesh, came out and asked us to "Follow Me for Tickets." He threw about 300 tickets up into the air, and the smaller children were supposed to get on the floor and pick them up. Casey and Julia got tired of picking them up, and so I found myself on my hands and knees, picking up tickets each worth about 1/100 of some horrible plastic nothing made by child slaves in China. Inches away from my face was the furry, fuzzy knee of Chuck E. Cheese. I picked myself up off the floor, shot Chuck a wry smile, and followed Casey and Julia back into the toddler section of my own personal Hades.

Next, I watched Casey playing a game in which you whack the heads of hammerhead sharks, similar to Whack-A-Mole. Casey gets 19. I see that the “record” for whacks to the heads of the sharks is 54. And so I wonder: Can I beat the record set by what I can only assume must have been another adult? I put in my token and I’m off! I get to 32 whacks. What is worse? Trying to beat the record of a toddler’s game at Chuck E. Cheese or FAILING to beat that record? By the way, I’ve since heard that the key to getting a high score on this game is use your hands, and not the mallet provided!

In the end it was a good trip. I pretty much hated every minute of it, but I could see how happy the children were. And that’s what matters, right?