The Adventures of Danger Boy

Every morning I am awoken by Jiro coming into my room, closing the door behind him, walking over to the bed, throwing his balnkie on my chest, and snuggling up next to me. It’s a pretty good way to wake up. (Unless it is 6:30am on a Saturday.) This morning he was not into snuggling. “Teevee,” he said.

“No TV. Snuggle,” I said.

“TEEVEE,” he repeated.

“Go tell Daddy,” I said knowing that Daddy would also say no, but maybe Daddy would get up and make him some breakfast to get his mind off of TV.

I’m not sure what Daddy said, but Jiro was back a few minutes later to get his blanket.

I rolled over and wondered if I could actually fall back asleep for just a few more minutes. As I dozed off I heard the distinctive sound of Jiro’s kinderzeat being pushed across the Mexican tile. Then I heard the sound of a child-proof top being turned.

Time to get up.

Jiro was in the kitchen methodically trying to open a bottle of Kaopectate. (Warren and Satchel were sound asleep in the big bed.) Sadly, this is just par for the course.

Last Saturday our friends were in town with their son, so we all went swimming at the Germantown pool. In addition to an Olympic sized lap pool there’s a water playground which consists of a slide and steps and lots of jets and sprayers and whatnot in the middle of a round, 1 foot deep pool. Jiro decided that he needed to go down the slide backwards (and upright). This resulted in him flipping over at the bottom and getting a bit lost in the water.

Luckily the Germantown pool has several lifeguards on duty. One of them pulled Jiro out, twice, while he laughed. (I was at the top of the slide and didn’t see any of it.) Jiro is actually really good at holding his breath and was probably fine, but still. He caused the lifeguard alarm and that is bad. “I’ve never had to save anybody twice,” she told me. It was nowhere near as traumatic as the Botanic Gardens incident, but it still kept me up Saturday night.

Last night Warren was on the road back from Nashville, so I decided to take the boys swimming again. Needless to say, I was on high alert. The spent almost a half hour jumping in the big pool, getting out, and jumping in again. When we went to the playground side they happily followed each other around and went down the slide forwards with no problems. (Satchel did dunk Jiro underwater once for a bit too long, but I was right there to stop him and explain why that was 100% unacceptable. When Jiro tried to climb up the slide, I was there to stop him and explain why that was also unacceptable. They both actually listened to me and cooperated.)

We took a break to eat a slice of pizza before the concession stand closed. Both monkeys were starved and gobbled theirs up in no time so they could get back in the big pool. No problem. Except Jiro became Danger Boy once he had a little food in his belly to convert to energy.

We were all very busy checking out the new floatation devices provided by the center, when I noticed that Jiro was taking bites out of a foam rubber block and spitting them out into the pool. I took the block away from him and told him to stop. He looked at me mischievously and grinned. That’s when I noticed that he still had a piece of it in his mouth. I put out my hand and said, “Spit it out,” but he got up and started running away.

I was in the pool and I knew that chasing him around the side would only make things worse. (I pictured myself tackling him, inserting my hands into his mouth, and getting bitten while he screamed for everyone to hear.) I held my ground and maintained eye contact with him while shaking my head “no.” He kept the grin on his face as he rounded the pool and stood at the ladder next to the three lanes that were roped off for laps.

I was a good 20 feet away. Surely he won’t jump in, I half thought/half prayed. (Danger Boy is also known as Mr. “I don’t need no stinkin floaties.”)

Of course, he jumped in. I immediately started towards him and watched in amazement as he made it to the first rope, took a breath, and went back under like he was going to swim the width of the pool. (He can sort of swim underwater, but not for very far.) I scooped him up before he made the second rope and he came up coughing. He gagged on the piece of foam he still had in his mouth and then vomited pizza all over me.

Yep, you heard me.

Amazingly, 99.9% of it went right down my top and nestled itself in my cleavage.

Danger Boy was fine. I was not. I had vomit all over my BREASTS! It was nasty, but I was really glad that it didn't get all in the pool. I remembered the long, drawn out chemical treatments that had to be done after someone puked in the Y pool during lessons and I really didn’t want anything like that to happen.

I took Jiro to the showers and by the time we got there, he was laughing and ready to wreak more havoc.

I just reeked.