Nick Postagulous
Friday, November 19, 2004
Sneaking In
It is a little known fact that when www.blogger.com is slow as Christmas, that you can use the button on the Google toolbar to "blog this" and get right in. I don't know if it's another server or what, but that's what I'm doing now.
Mouth Kissers
Or more specifically Baby Mouth Kissers. Or, even more specifically, The Philosophy Behind not Being a Baby Mouth Kisser.
(ahem)
My parents are baby mouth kissers. Mom and Dad's default mode for kissing Nina was to mouth kiss her. Mom and Dad mouth kissed us, as kids that is. No mouth kissing as adolescents or adults. Why? Because it would be awkward. And, in fact, with the disappearance of the ability to kiss so disappeared nearly all physical affection. We do the kind of patting hugs that NFL players do.
Now, I'm not saying that I'd like to start having hugging sessions with my parents. Far from it. I was raised in a very non-touchy household.
But there's the thing. Alison is from an non-baby mouth kissing family. They kiss each other on the cheek. Not just kids. All the time, whenever. That's how they kiss each other. They didn't have to stop when the kids started turning into adults and it became awkward. It didn't become awkward. Because they weren't snogging each other in the first place.
Now, I'll give my mother credit where credit is due. When Alison let her feelings on the subject be known with the ever so subtle "Nina kiss Nanny and Papa on the cheek bye-bye", my mom picked up on it immediately and gave Nina a kiss on the cheek. Dad did not pick up on it.
Not only the whole altering-the-family-dynamic-forever thing, but also, there is a stomach flu going around. Let's not have Dad and Mom, who hang in totally different circles than Alison and I do, give their collection of germs to Nina. After all, Nina, Alison and I are pretty closely knit. I have to stick my finger in Nina's mouth to put on tooth gel to ease the pain of those pesky molars that are coming in. And Alison is just awash in Nina germs.
Not of the least importance is that Alison has already used up all her sick leave for the year. It's assigned in January and that's all you get. If she is sick, it's leave without pay. And that would totally suck.
Flinchworthy Mouth Touching
One of the most flinchworthy things my parents used to do (note: past tense due to me getting on to them repeatedly) was to roll their tongues and then encourage Nina to poke her finger into the tongue cylinder they'd made. Eeeehch. Not only nasty in a bacteria transfer way, as if Nina wouldn't be putting her hand in her mouth anytime soon, but also freaky pseudosexualness registers immediately in my mind. Geeeh!
Grandparents can spoil children, sure, but not by doing smooching on them in ways that are considered inappropriate by their parents. Heck, give her some ice cream if you want to spoil her.
Hurty Stomach Cause Discovered
Alison's corn chowder she made last night let us know who was right in the discussion of whether Nina has horrible nights after visiting my parent's because of massive overstimulation or because of food being shoveled into her mouth.
See, Nina loves soup. And so I fed her quite a little bit of the corn chowder. Not too much, just about 1.5 ounces. But, the corn in the soup, creamed corn, was too much for Nina's little system and rather than being broken down prior to the large intestines, well, it broke down in them and gassed her up like the Hindenburg. Poor thing was crying out every 20 or so minutes. Around 9 she did manage to have a monster burp, which helped for about an hour. And it gradually tapered off as the night wore on.
So, Nanny and Papa can overstimulate Nina at will. I knew it wasn't that, as I've had her bouncing off the walls for an hour before and she slept like a rock.
