A Pain in the....Ear

05/15/07 - A pain in the.....ear
Charlie decided he wanted an ear piercing. He asked me which one. My suggestion, since I find him sleeping on his left side every morning, was that he pierce the right one so the earring wouldn't bother him when he sleeps.

My mother, God bless her, advised that I check with my older son, Rick, to make sure that was socially acceptable because she happened to know (which I didn't) that one ear or the other had a meaning that Charlie might not intend. (Have I been hiding under a rock all my life or what, that I didn't know that???)

According to Rick, the easy way to remember which ear to pierce (for a straight guy, anyway) is "Left is right and right is wrong." So I had to convince Charlie that mama was wrong, and he should pierce the left ear instead.

This was about a week ago, and we kind of dropped the subject after that. I have no clue where to get ears pierced. My mother took me to a doctor when I was 13, and when I asked Charlie's doctor about it, I got a rather funny look, so I didn't push the issue.

Tonight we had some running around to do (another whole story for later) and on the way home we passed through downtown Odenton, which is the little boomtown neighboring the local military base. What does one find in the vicinity of all military bases? TATOO PARLORS!!! And there was a sign outside of one that said Tattoos/Piercings. Aha! I asked Charlie if he still wanted to pierce his ear, and he got a big grin on his face, so we turned around and went back. It was nice and clean inside. They were currently working on someone's tattoo, so I got to see their set-up and that they kept things neat and clean in the work area. They said they sterilize their instruments. So I signed the forms and Charlie sat in the chair.

When the doctor pierced my ears eons ago, he used a little gun thingie that loaded the earring stud and put it in all in one fell swoop. It hurt, but not for long.

This looked brutal in comparison. They used what looked like a railroad spike....I'm not going into any more detail than that. Charlie sat stock still, but the look of pain on his face pierced my heart. And when the piercing was done, they still had to insert the earring. Eeek.

He sat through that fine, too, and seemed okay until we were ready to stand up. Then the sweat beaded up on his brow and his eyes rolled a little, and the dry heaves started.

Thank God we hadn't had dinner yet.

They gave him a popsicle and a wet paper towel on the back of his neck, and that straightened him out after a few minutes. We finally left.

Over dinner, I asked him what was next: Eyebrow? Lip? Nose? Belly button? Shook his head violently, and signed, "NO, NO, NO!!!"

His earring does look pretty cool--he wears it well. He's not planning to tell the other kids about heaving afterwards.

Squirrel (in a) Stew

I still can't believe it. When I got home from work today, Charlie had a big box sitting over his contraption with a weight on top of the box. Told me to get my camera. Then he took off the weight, took off the box and revealed his catch. The picture says it all, folks.

That poor squirrel was so upset that he had peed all over what little bit of flooring was under him while he waited. Charlie said when the basket first came down on top of him, he was in such a tizz that he kept running around like a hamster in a ball, spinning all over the deck inside of this basket. Charlie got pictures of the whole thing, from the time the squirrel starting nosing around the basket until it trapped him.

After I got the pictures, I told him to let it loose, so he picked up the flower basket. His big mistake was to be in between the flower basket and the side of the deck that faces the woods. That squirrel damn near knocked him over trying to get away. When he hit the edge of the deck, he didn't even bother climbing down the support posts like he usually does (our deck is one story off the ground). No, he just jumped. Flew across the walking path and didn't hit terra firma until a tree got in the way.

Now I know why they call them flying squirrels.

Bee Stalker

This kid is kinda scary sometimes.

First day of really nice weather we got here on the East Coast, I opened all the windows and screen doors. I'm sitting in my office working, when I hear a shout from outside--Charlie's voice.

Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash....only to find my son on a guerilla mission.

Charlie had commandeered Rick's super-soaker (think squirt gun, bazooka-sized), and was patrolling the grounds around the house, stalking BEES.

This child was waiting until a bee or wasp would land on the porch or the bushes or the wishing well, then squirting it with the super-soaker until it fell on the ground, and then yelling and stomping it out of existence.

He's going to make a great sniper someday, I just know it.

Of Mice and Men (or squirrels and boys)

Charlie has picked up quickly that squirrels are not my favorite creatures. I have a number of bird feeders hanging off my deck, and I spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to keep squirrels out of the bird food. I think a squirrel can eat something like 283 times his own body weight, or something like that. Anyway, Rick told Charlie the story about the day I was home with the flu, and the squirrel was looking me in the eye while he hung from the top of the bird feeder, digging seed out of the hole with his greedy little paws. Since I was feverish to start with, I was probably hallucinating the glee I saw on his face as he started cleaning it out, but it ticked me off so bad that I flew out the door onto the snow-covered deck, barefoot and in my bathrobe, scooping up snow by the handful and throwing snowballs and screaming at the squirrel, which is frantically jumping from bird feeder to deck railing to tree branch, trying to escape this maniacal, obviously sick woman.

Charlie was laughing hysterically while Rick told him this story, so it comes as no great surprise that Charlie is now plotting how to defeat the squirrels and do a better job of it than mom did.

The picture above is what I found when I came home from work tonight. Charlie spent the day devising a squirrel trap. So in the picture above, we see a box of sunflower seeds to attract the squirrel, an overturned wire flower basket to act as a cage, propped up on a candle with a string around it. The string extends to the kitchen, where Charlie has been sitting all evening, waiting for the squirrel to show up, so he can pull the candle out and make the basket fall on the squirrel, trapping him under the basket.

I haven't seen the kid sit this still since he got here. He can be incredibly focused when he wants to be.

I would say there's no way in hades he's gonna catch a squirrel with this thing, but this is Charlie we're talking about. I guess if he does catch one, we'll have to get pictures and post them here in an update, 'cause no one will believe me without proof when I say my 13-year-old from China caught a squirrel without a gun, using only a flower pot, a candle, and a string.

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Gotta Be a Better Way

Shortly after I started my study of Chinese cooking, I discovered that one of Charlie's favorite dishes in the world is Jiaozi, a Chinese dumpling that is filled with pork, napa cabbage, chives, and various spices. I also discovered that Jiaozi is very time-intensive to make. Making the dough and rolling out those thin dumpling skins takes forever! Jiaozi ended up being a half-day project, and by the time we were done, I had pretty much decided that this was going to be a special occasion treat, not an everyday dish. I was afraid to try to make the stuffing ahead and freeze it, because the cabbage would get all slimy, but I was wondering if I could make a mountain of those dumpling skins and freeze them so I didn't have to go through all that very often.

Fast forward a week or two, and Charlie and I are shopping for fruit and veggies in the local SuperFresh store. I'm looking at the napa cabbages, and Charlie starts "talking." He doesn't use his voice in public much unless he is really, really excited about something, so I hurried over to where he was looking, and he is pointing at a package of round, thin, slices of dough. Dumpling skins. Ready-made.

It says you can freeze them. I bought 5 packages of them--there's 100 in each package. I figure that's going to keep us going for a while.

We had dumplings again tonight, and it took less than an hour. Goes so much faster when you don't have to start from flour and water.

Is that cheating? Don't know, don't care.

Cast Away

Charlie's cast came off this afternoon, and not a minute too soon. He was doing great with it for the past 3 weeks or thereabouts, never complained. Then on Sunday, we were sitting in Sunday school gabbing with some other folks before the leader started the lesson, and a lady whom we'll call Cindy ('cause it's her real name!) asked him if it itched. He signed back, "Just a little bit." She leans forward like she's about to tell him a secret, and signed, "You know why it itches, right? That's because there's little bugs in there crawling around...."

His eyes got big, but only for a second. He KNEW she was puttin' him on. Nonetheless, the power of suggestion had taken hold. That cast started driving him nuts. Poor kid was miserable for the next 3 days, and he was so happy when Wednesday rolled around. They took that cast off and he immediately started rubbing his arm. Of course, this raised little bits of skin, so he gets his face down there real close to inspect, then looks up at me, signs "BUGS!" with his good hand, and flies outta the room to a deep sink he saw in the hallway where he can wash off his arm, leaving the doc sitting there with his jaw on the floor.

Gimme a Break!

Well, Charlie has only been home 2-1/2 months and is on the injured list already. I got an e-mail from his teacher one afternoon that he had hurt his wrist slamming into a wall during a game of 4-square. The health center nurse said he could move the wrist, so she ice-bagged it and let him go.

When I got home and took a look, it seemed he had a lot more pain than simple bruising would cause--it was extremely painful to touch in two specific areas--so we went to one of those evening emergency clinics. They advertised x-ray capability, but it turned out they only had a mini-C-arm machine, so the pictures weren't good enough quality to pick up fine fractures. Since there was some doubt, they splinted him and told us to follow up with the orthopedist the next day.

I think the building where the orthopedist's office is must have looked like the hospital in China where they took him for an appendectomy, because as we pulled into the parking lot, he looked at the building, got very big eyes and a worried look on his face, and signed, "Surgery? Cut wrist?" I explained that it was just a doctor's office, not a hospital, and that they would only be taking pictures and might put a cast on it. Somewhat mollified, he agreed to go inside.

The orthopedist got better pictures and STILL isn't completely sure if it's broken. He suspects from the location of the pain Charlie is having that there is a little crack in one of the wrist bones called the scaphoid, and he decided to cast it just in case, because if it is cracked, it will never heal if he keeps twisting his wrist with normal use.

Charlie now has a bright green cast for the next 3 weeks. Doc warned him to keep it clean and dry. I explained that he would have to cover it with a plastic bag and a rubber band to shower.

At least it's on his non-dominant hand, so it doesn't much affect his ability to sign/communicate. Doesn't affect his ability to eat ice cream, either--we detoured out to Baskin Robbins on the way home.

We got home and showed off the new cast to big brother, Rick, who immediately tries to explain about the custom of signing casts and pulls out a black Sharpie magic marker. Charlie pulls back, screaming, "No, no, doctor said clean, dry!" (Guess I interpreted that part right, huh?)

We explained the difference between clean and "clean" and told him that the kids at school will all be wanting to sign his cast once they see it.

They made a liar outta me. He got home from school yesterday, and there wasn't a single signature on that cast except Rick's and mine. Don't kids sign casts any more???

He's dealing with it like a champ, not complaining, and only admitting that it aches a little if I happen to ask about it, but he's no longer asking for the ibuprofen we were using to help with the pain. Guess he's going to live through this one.

He got a nice pick-me-up yesterday evening, though. We stopped at the mailbox, and the first four fabric squares and wishes were waiting there. I let him open the envelopes and explained the custom of the 100 good wishes quilt and showed him pictures on the web of what I'd like his to look like. Now he's interested in checking the mailbox to see if any more show up. (For those who don't know what I'm talking about yet, look here.) He really enjoys getting mail. I think I'm going to subscribe him to a couple of magazines so he gets some mail of his own occasionally. Getting those envelopes was just what he needed to put a smile on his face. I even got some pictures of the big grin. Once I get them transferred to the computer, I'll add one to this post.