Spending the Day with Daddy
Well, last weekend wasn’t your typical weekend in the W. household. Our ordinary D&D game had been cancelled, so my wife seized the opportunity to transport some furniture that she’d been meaning to move. This, quite naturally, left me home with our son for a sizable portion of the day. Now, like most working fathers, I don’t often get the opportunity to spend a day alone with my son. It was unfortunate, however, that our time together involved me wiping his nose every two minutes or so.
I imagine most toddlers don’t take very well to being sick the same way ours doesn’t. He wanted to run and play and perform all of his normal toddler activities, but he didn’t seem to understand that he was sick. We got into a rhythm where he would be off playing, sneeze, and come running back to me to wipe his nose. I think there must be some implicit rule of toddlerhood that says, “Don’t be still under any circumstances.”
Of course, I didn’t mind the inconvenience. I’ve been managing his bodily secretions for about two years now, so a little (okay, a lot of) mucus isn’t going to bother me. No, we spent the day playing and accumulating a pile of tissues. Despite his illness, he spent a good deal of time out on the porch playing with his bucket of water. The rascal even managed to give one of his teddy bears a bath when I wasn’t looking.
Unfortunately, I awoke this morning to find that I had come down with his cold. Hopefully, it’ll only be a 24-hour bug like it was for him. Like any parent, of course, I consider it an occupational hazard; there wouldn’t have been any avoiding it even if I had tried, so I didn’t bother to take any precautions.
This cold does, however, bring me to the humorous parenting lesson of the day. Like the old adage, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” I say the following: Beware of toddlers bearing the sniffles. Sure, it makes you want to pamper them, but you’ll just end up sick for your trouble. 