Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Gross extraction
My wife has an amazing ability to wipe up, pick out, or otherwise take care of the gross bodily fluids of our children. I just witnessed a snot extraction from our 4-year old via fingernail (no tissue needed). Gross! I mean I wouldn’t touch that bare-handed if it were oozing all over his face. While I didn’t appreciate the bare-skin extraction, I’m quite thankful for this motherly ability. On several late night barf clean-ups, I’ve gagged and recoiled briefly before my wife swooped in, pushing my weakling self aside, pooling and scraping up chunky yellow bile before I could even get back to sleep. For this I owe her my life. If I’d had to do it myself, I would have suffered unbearable and irreparable mental and emotional damage. You might doubt this assertion, thinking I’m just another wimpy male but I do so solemnly swear that there is something deep, something genetic, some tough mother-earth, archetypal energy which allows these magical abilities. Let us now praise everyday mothers.
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4 comments:
I don't know who has the weaker stomach, me or Middlebrow, but I can attest that I have done some incredibly disgusting things (like catching warm spit-up in my bare hands) that I never would have done before becoming a mother. But the sight of blood still makes me clammy.
Dr. Write has the weaker stomach--far weaker. I can't even believe she would suggest otherwise. Ask Dr. Write this: Who fixes the toilet? Who cleans the drains? Who got down on his hands and knees and snaked the vile sink/washing machine exit drain? Who kills bugs?
Bravo to Counterintuitive's wife. Hail to the strong-stomached!
Put that on a mother's day card!
Listen, I'm not even going to get into the gross stuff I've done over the many, many years of motherhood (yes, I'm playing the "many, many years of motherhood" card). But your story reminds me of how my son and his friends all say "not it!" when there's something disgusting or even inconvenient to do. Might this not apply to the gross extractions of parenthood? Quick draw gets to sit back and watch the other parent clean up the vomit, etc.? I'm just saying.
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