Quintessential William
Willie Spills Juice and Mom calls 911
When I woke up Monday morning I was anticipating making
major headway on my list of things to do. First on the agenda was tackling the
larger-than-usual mountain of laundry, with its stack of muddy kids’ clothes
that required pre-scrubbing and de-snailing. (Sad to say, I didn't know about
the de-snailing part until after they were washed. Poor little snail.)
The laundry was underway, and breakfast was cooked and
cooling on the counter, when I went upstairs to feed the babes. I was just
about finished when Wills came in the room - with a pink, wet stain down the
front of his shirt.
"Apple - juice - spilled," was his jerky
explanation.
It didn't look like apple juice. I racked my brain as
to what kind of juice we had in the fridge at the moment that would have
produced that shade of stain, while simultaneously tucking baby in bed and
exhorting Willie to not help himself to juice.
I was following him out of the room to investigate the
mess when the odor hit me.
It smelled... reminiscent of something burning. I ran
down the stairs, and there on the front hall floor was my glass oil lamp, still
intact, but with the red-tinted oil sloshed all over the floor, and oily
footprints extending in every direction from the puddle.
Quick as a flash I put it all together.
"Apple juice! Oh no!!!!!!! Willie, did you drink
that????!!!"
"Drink dat...." he affirmed.
"Agghhhh! Nooooo!!!"
The next few seconds are a little fuzzy, but I think it
was at this point that I bent down to smell Willie's mouth. He reeked. (Of
course, that could have been because he'd spilled it all over himself.) I
dashed madly downstairs, located a bottle of lamp oil, and read the ominous
words: "Harmful or fatal if swallowed."
Poison control is all very well but I wasn't about to
waste precious minutes searching for a phone number in a case of potentially
fatal poisoning. I called 911.
Help was on the way, and I was calmly waiting for it.
When the paramedics arrived they took Willie's vitals
and questioned him about what had happened. They wanted to determine if he was
experiencing any confusion.
"Did you drink that stuff?"
"Drink dat...."
"Did you drink a lot, or just a little bit?"
"Little bit...."
"Did it taste good?"
"Nohhh..."
"It tasted yucky?"
"Nohhh..."
"How do you feel now? Does your tummy feel
good?"
"Feel good..."
"So you don't feel sick at all?"
"Feel sick...."
After several minutes more of this sort of enlightening
conversation, I was able to reassure them that our dear Wills was no more
confused than usual. :)
Other then some extra coughing and gagging sounds while
I relayed the events to M on the phone afterward (which miraculously cleared up
the moment I hastily hung up to investigate), Wills didn't show any alarming
symptoms the rest of the day. Praise God!
Willie Wants Juice Again
We celebrated the Lord's Supper on Sunday. When the
bread came by, Wills begged to have some too. He was just quieting down and
accepting his deprivation, when around came the wine trays.
"I want some juice! No, I want some!" (He has
this way of anticipating refusal and countering it before we can actually slip
a word in edgewise.)
I assured him in a whisper that he could have some
juice after church. Acting on sudden inspiration, I then added, "You will
get a nice BIG cup of juice!" This appeal to his greed had its desired
effect and he quieted down. I was startled, then, when just as the minister was
reminding us to drink in remembrance of Christ, Willie started tugging on my
arm and whispering more excitedly than before.
"That's my cup! I get that cup after," he
whispered in high satisfaction, pointing at the silver chalice in the
minister's hand.
"No, of course not - "
"Yes, I do! Yes! You said I get The Big
One...."
Oops.
(I think this is the same boy who drank out of the
baptismal font, but at least in that case there was no danger of
intoxication...)
Willie at Bedtime
Roaring and crawling on all fours to his room, Willie
"the Lion" climbed into bed and submitted to being tucked in. I sang
our bedtime prayer, and Willie prayed along as best he could... until he
reached the end. His Amen came out more like "Ah, yi-unz."
He then chortled, "I said 'all lions' instead of
'all men'! ha ha ha!"
On another occasion:
"I yike frowen up..." he said as I tucked him
in.
"You like growing up?" I repeated back, to
confirm.
"No, no, not FROWEN up, FROWEN up!" he
repeated in frustration.
I looked around helplessly for inspiration, and saw
that Jo just happened to be leaving the room holding a bucket.
"You like throwing up?" I tried.
"Yeah, I yike frowen up! I yike frowen up!"
Relieved to have that confession off his chest, he settled down contentedly to
sleep...
Willie Goes Shopping
The other evening I took Will out shopping with me. He
started off not wanting to lose hold of my hand for even as long as it took me
to put my keys in my purse. But pretty soon he was darting off to touch this or
that, asking, "Should we get dis, mom? Should we get dis?"
We came into a store with manikins and of course he was
very intrigued by these "funny guys" who had no heads, and he kept
running up to one after another of them to pump their arms up and down and
exclaim, "Can we buy dis one?"
Then we rounded a corner, and stored against a wall was
a naked one - which his eagle eyes noticed at once - and he dashed off to give
it a great poke that almost knocked it over.
"Huh? What's dis? Is dis a Bare, mom?"
Willie After Meals
"May I be accused?"
Willie gets Sick
Yes, sadly, the Warrior himself has been laid low.
Initially, the sickness was not of a nature to get him down, and he fought
through each day in much the same way as usual. But the past couple days he's
been flat out on the couch, dozing right in the middle of the battlefield in
the most un-warrior like fashion - all saggy and drool-y and hot and feverish.
However, during these days my brave
little boy has still managed to summon up a smile for me upon awaking from a
feverish sleep. He has prayed a prayer of thanksgiving ("nank-you I can be
sick"), side by side with a prayer of faith ("nank-you I won't be
sick no more"). He has sat and cuddled on my lap (but not for too long at
one time, being, after all, a Warrior.) He has managed a sweet whisper, "I
love you, Mommy," followed by a second whisper: "I want to fight all
the bad guys." (Those may sound like unrelated thoughts, but not to Warriors.
Warriors need to fight, you know, and the eternal question for our Warrior is
not, "Will I fight, or no?" but, "Who's side will I be on?"
So, when William says he wants to fight all the bad guys, it’s just his way of
saying he wants to be a good boy. He gets an extra squeeze and kiss for that.)
Wills out on a Lark
The other evening I took Wills out for a little walk
just after sundown. He held my hand and ran to keep up with me. He pointed
excitedly to the moon. He rubbed my hand against his cheek. Then he looked up
at me, and said happily, "I lub you, mommy. I'm with you." He did a
happy jig and pressed my hand against his cheek again.
