The boys got a crash course in animal reproduction this past weekend. We were driving and it always seems as though all important conversations happen in the car when you can't see the expressions on their faces. I think they do this on purpose. I'm not sure how the topic turned to the mating practices of canines, but it did. My oldest was concerned that even though our dog has been spayed, more importantly, because she was not married it was inconceivable to him that she could become impregnated. Now Lee and I are pretty conservative, but practical. While we won't be advocating teen pregnancy in our home, the whole "wait until you are married" concept, though in a perfect world would be ideal, might be impossible to enforce. And we already know plenty of people who have conceived/had their kids outside of the "marriage bed", so to speak. So, thinking that the whole idea of tolerance is more important than idealism, I decide that 290 west is the optimal location to disspell the myth of not only dog matrimony, but matrimony as a prerequisite to childbearing in general.
"Son, dogs can't really get married."
"But then how do they have babies?" he asks, bewildered.
Thus, the sex education lesson begins. Already they are well versed in the correct terminology of male and female anatomical parts, so I explain that the male dog's penis goes into the female dog's vagina. Lee expounds and decides to make it relateable, "You know how it feels good to touch your penis and it can get hard? Well a dog's penis can get hard too." I remind them of the times that they have seen a dog's penis which leads them to recollect all the different times that they have seen various animal's genitalia. Collectively, the two of them can remember a fair number of animal gaint-testicle sitings. After the digression, my younger son wants to know about the mechanics of the whole encounter. He is puzzled as to how exactly a dog's penis can fit into another dog's vagina. The two parts just don't seem to fit. Then I explain "humping." This is a term that is not in their vocabulary, so I clarify things for them.
"Well, they can't lay down together, so the male dog kind of pounces on the female dog from behind and his penis can go into her vagina", I offer to them.
Since we've gone this far, Lee figures we might as well go all the way with our lesson and starts in on embryology. "The testicles have sperm in them, which are like little seeds and these seeds go out thru the penis into the girl dog's vagina. The girl dog also has a little seed inside of her and it's called an egg and the sperm and the egg join together and puppies grow from this. It's the same thing for humans. This is how they have babies too."
My oldest, Mr Concrete, dumbfounded, exclaims, "No way, the girls have eggs inside of them? How did they get in there?"
So, Lee backtracks and explains the difference between the eggs that are seen in a cardboard dozen and the eggs in a woman's body. The oldest seems satisfied with our lesson and is quietly pondering these things in his mind, though the concept of canine promiscuity is rattling his sense of right and wrong. I know he is still thinking, "Surely, they must get married before they have babies. Who would take care of the puppies? Just the mom?" He does't realize, in the animal kingdom, there is not an equal division of labor, with dad taking the pups to soccer practice so mom can make dinner.
Our younger boy gets it right away (mercifully, our daughter who is far more savvy than both of her brothers combined, is asleep in her car seat). In the rear view mirror I can see his wheels spinning and putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. Boy dog's penis in girl dog's vagina. Boy dog pounces on girl dog. Boy dog's seed and girl dog's egg combine and make a baby. And this is the same as humans! I can see the moment his little mind is screaming, "Eureka!" and with an impish look on his face and a glimmer in his eye, he raises his eyebrows and says to Lee, "So dad, is that what you did to mom? Did you pounce on her?"
I'm sure that we will have this conversation (or versions there of) time and time again, but I don't think that Lee and I will laugh as hard as we did on this occasion, with tears streaming down our faces and urine soiling our underpants. Hands down, that was one of the top ten moments of parenthood. I don't see how people can avoid talking to their kids about "sensitive subjects". They (kids) are so damn smart that you really aren't sparing them from anything and you, as the parent, are, at the least, withholding some really funny stuff from yourself. Child-rearing, no matter how exhausting it may be, is awesome!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Addictions and Missions
Our dog, Star, has a fondness for small stuffed creatures. Either the furry creatures that populate our daughter's room (more accurately, the four corners of our home) are little known canine delicacies or upon seeing them she enters into some sort of predatory mode and is simply protecting us all from the dangers of Beanie Babies and Webkins. My desk has become a make-shift stuffed toy infirmary. Cuddly dogs and cats, bears and wombats are lined up next to the computer, some with simple lacerations and others destined to be amputees. When my daughter sees one of her stuffed animals in the dog's mouth she feels betrayed by the dog. Like she, the dog, had promised my daughter that she would end her addiction, but then she is caught red-handed (or red-snouted to be precise). The look in my daughter's face is one of disgust and deep sorrow because she knows that she can't trust the one that she loves.
Speaking of addictions, my middle son has developed a fetish of sorts with temporary tattoos. I blame my aunt and uncle who sent him a book of over 500 temporary tattoos. Even though he is not quite 7 years old, his arms, neck and chest resemble those of a 42 year old biker. All he is missing is the motorcycle, leather apparel, long white beard and the bandana. His father and I are hoping that he gets the need to have body art out of his system while he can still remove them with a little soap and water. His addiction is like any other; it's done in secret and he is somewhat ashamed by it. We find wet papertowels and washclothes in unseeming places, evidence that he has been feeding his habit. Later, he wants us to remove them or he covers them with shirtsleeves. He is horribly fearful of having his classmates see them. If he weren't too young to understand the tenets of a 12 step program we might have to consider finding one is some church basement or school cafeteria. Either that or hide the book of tattoos.
I have much more to write, particularly about my soul-searching mission I just completed. Well, maybe I didn't complete it, but I did start it. Rather than journeying to the far east, I went southwest to Laredo, TX. If you can believe it, this trip to a border town was the trip of a lifetime. I credit God and my husband for forcing me to go on this pilgrimage. I must admit at first I was somewhat reluctant. More than anything, it gave me the opportunity to ask really difficult questions. But after I started talking, I realized the questions weren't all that hard to ask, they weren't all that taboo and most people wanted to (or were at least willig to) talk about the topics I proposed. Talk about clearing up a lifetime of misconceptions! Had I had these conversations 20 years ago I could have saved myself a hell of lot of time and money in therapy. But it was probably all those hours over all those years sitting in that chair that enabled me to get to the point where I was ready and preparred to ask the questions without judgment, anger or fear. It encourages me to tell others to do the same. Don't wait to ask the questions or have the conversations. You'll be suprised at what you may learn and mostly, even if it's not what you expect, it's all good.
Speaking of addictions, my middle son has developed a fetish of sorts with temporary tattoos. I blame my aunt and uncle who sent him a book of over 500 temporary tattoos. Even though he is not quite 7 years old, his arms, neck and chest resemble those of a 42 year old biker. All he is missing is the motorcycle, leather apparel, long white beard and the bandana. His father and I are hoping that he gets the need to have body art out of his system while he can still remove them with a little soap and water. His addiction is like any other; it's done in secret and he is somewhat ashamed by it. We find wet papertowels and washclothes in unseeming places, evidence that he has been feeding his habit. Later, he wants us to remove them or he covers them with shirtsleeves. He is horribly fearful of having his classmates see them. If he weren't too young to understand the tenets of a 12 step program we might have to consider finding one is some church basement or school cafeteria. Either that or hide the book of tattoos.
I have much more to write, particularly about my soul-searching mission I just completed. Well, maybe I didn't complete it, but I did start it. Rather than journeying to the far east, I went southwest to Laredo, TX. If you can believe it, this trip to a border town was the trip of a lifetime. I credit God and my husband for forcing me to go on this pilgrimage. I must admit at first I was somewhat reluctant. More than anything, it gave me the opportunity to ask really difficult questions. But after I started talking, I realized the questions weren't all that hard to ask, they weren't all that taboo and most people wanted to (or were at least willig to) talk about the topics I proposed. Talk about clearing up a lifetime of misconceptions! Had I had these conversations 20 years ago I could have saved myself a hell of lot of time and money in therapy. But it was probably all those hours over all those years sitting in that chair that enabled me to get to the point where I was ready and preparred to ask the questions without judgment, anger or fear. It encourages me to tell others to do the same. Don't wait to ask the questions or have the conversations. You'll be suprised at what you may learn and mostly, even if it's not what you expect, it's all good.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Just Another Day at the Office
I am sick. That is not meant as a judgement of myself, rather it is an actual physical description. My office mate told me that I sound like Brenda Vaccaro. I'm not sure who she is, but if she sounds like she's been a smoker for the past 60 years, then I sound like her. I have not been able to breathe out of either nostril in days and I bark like a seal when I cough. The reason I had been feeling like I couldn't breathe is because my body was getting ready to mount this assault on me with this horrific cold. Basically, I'm miserable and I want the whole world to know. I laid in bed for almost 3 entire days. The good news is that I finally got to watch "The Millionairre Matchmaker" on Bravo.
Despite my fragile state, ever the martyr, I went in to work today. The first part of the day was spent lying on a nogahide couch in the resident's lounge in the back of the ER. Every time the residents or students had a patient to discuss they would tiptoe back to where I was napping and gently rouse me out of my misery. They could have ordered an open-heart biopsy to be performed right there in the ER (just like they do everything in the ER on the show ER) and I would have agreed to it. After lunch I decided that I had better make an appearance and actually see a few patients. This was a critical error in judgment.
Mostly, I really like the ER. It is a fun, strange, surreal, crazy, hectic, humbling place to practice medicine. Occassionally you have to deal with the scourge of the earth and you want them to crawl back under the rock from whence they came. Today was one of those days. Maybe it was because I felt so shitty. Regardless, after my interaction with one of the patients I found myself wondering why I hadn't bothered calling in sick today. The man wanted cough syrup; prescription cough syrup. Well, no one gets a prescription for cough syrup with codeine from the ER. It just doesn't happen. Besides, I didn't hear him cough one time the entire 15 minutes I spent interviewing and examining him. His lungs were crystal clear and he was finishing a course of antibiotics his primary care doctor had prescribed for him. When I told him that I could give him a prescription strength cough drop, otherwise he'd have to buy over the counter cough syrup, he went ape-shit on me. He pulled out the race card. I had not seen this coming. He told me that I wasn't giving him prescription cough syrup because he was black and all white doctors thought that black patients "just wanted the syrup and they were all drug heads!"
His tactic backfired. It was all intimidation. He thought he could intimidate me into prescribing him narcotics by calling me a racist. This was not the most well thought out plan. After my initial desire to tell him to shut the f-ck up while biting my tongue so as not to call him a f---ing, sh-thead, a--hole and curbing my urge to spit in his face, I took a deep breath (through my mouth b/c, unlike my patient, I actually could not breathe out of my nose) and told him (with the utmost professionalism, of course) that he could not speak to me in that manner and if he continued to speak to me in the tone that he was using (by the way, when he told me I was racist, he was yelling at me and in my face) that I would be happy to call security to escort him out of the hospital. He didn't like this plan so he decided that he would leave on his own. Right then and there. I didn't go running after him, I'm not that much of a martyr, but I did offer, one last time, to give him the cough drops that he didn't want. He declined, though not politely.
I was hopping mad after that little interaction. I was like Deputy Dawg mumbling all sorts of things under my breath, "Sassen frassen...Scourge of the earth...syrup!...hah!...sassen frassen..." It took about 2 to 3 more patients for me to completely pipe down, but by the time the HIV positive lady asked me to look at her "27 vaginal warts", I was as cool as a cucumber. I guess it's just all in a day's work...
Despite my fragile state, ever the martyr, I went in to work today. The first part of the day was spent lying on a nogahide couch in the resident's lounge in the back of the ER. Every time the residents or students had a patient to discuss they would tiptoe back to where I was napping and gently rouse me out of my misery. They could have ordered an open-heart biopsy to be performed right there in the ER (just like they do everything in the ER on the show ER) and I would have agreed to it. After lunch I decided that I had better make an appearance and actually see a few patients. This was a critical error in judgment.
Mostly, I really like the ER. It is a fun, strange, surreal, crazy, hectic, humbling place to practice medicine. Occassionally you have to deal with the scourge of the earth and you want them to crawl back under the rock from whence they came. Today was one of those days. Maybe it was because I felt so shitty. Regardless, after my interaction with one of the patients I found myself wondering why I hadn't bothered calling in sick today. The man wanted cough syrup; prescription cough syrup. Well, no one gets a prescription for cough syrup with codeine from the ER. It just doesn't happen. Besides, I didn't hear him cough one time the entire 15 minutes I spent interviewing and examining him. His lungs were crystal clear and he was finishing a course of antibiotics his primary care doctor had prescribed for him. When I told him that I could give him a prescription strength cough drop, otherwise he'd have to buy over the counter cough syrup, he went ape-shit on me. He pulled out the race card. I had not seen this coming. He told me that I wasn't giving him prescription cough syrup because he was black and all white doctors thought that black patients "just wanted the syrup and they were all drug heads!"
His tactic backfired. It was all intimidation. He thought he could intimidate me into prescribing him narcotics by calling me a racist. This was not the most well thought out plan. After my initial desire to tell him to shut the f-ck up while biting my tongue so as not to call him a f---ing, sh-thead, a--hole and curbing my urge to spit in his face, I took a deep breath (through my mouth b/c, unlike my patient, I actually could not breathe out of my nose) and told him (with the utmost professionalism, of course) that he could not speak to me in that manner and if he continued to speak to me in the tone that he was using (by the way, when he told me I was racist, he was yelling at me and in my face) that I would be happy to call security to escort him out of the hospital. He didn't like this plan so he decided that he would leave on his own. Right then and there. I didn't go running after him, I'm not that much of a martyr, but I did offer, one last time, to give him the cough drops that he didn't want. He declined, though not politely.
I was hopping mad after that little interaction. I was like Deputy Dawg mumbling all sorts of things under my breath, "Sassen frassen...Scourge of the earth...syrup!...hah!...sassen frassen..." It took about 2 to 3 more patients for me to completely pipe down, but by the time the HIV positive lady asked me to look at her "27 vaginal warts", I was as cool as a cucumber. I guess it's just all in a day's work...
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