.jpg)
Hostibul & Murphy’s Law
For a few days now, Carver has requested that we go back to the “hostibul,” which is what he calls the hospital. I can understand the desire to just lay in bed and watch movies all day, but he wants to go back specifically so that he can ride in the little toy car:
We’ve explained several times that the hospital is a place to stay just when one is sick, and we are much happier to have Carver all better. Our reasoning does not sway Carver, though. He wants to go back. We tried a few other, similar driving toys, thinking that would scratch his itch, but all were to no avail. Yesterday, Carver explained to me again why he wanted to go back, describing the toy car, but this time he added that he wanted to play with it using “two hands.” That cleared up the mystery for me a bit. As a student of psychology, it became clear to me that Carver was frustrated at his inability to use his left hand (because of the IV), and that the hospital could have been a much more enjoyable time had he gotten to experience it with both hands. Now, he wants to have that chance, to find some closure to that time, and prove to himself that he is all better.
Unfortunately, the hospital is not going to let a perfectly well child come on the floor just to play with one of their cars for 15 minutes, but we know a place with the same type of car that just might serve the purpose. If we don’t resolve this, I worry he may compulsively steal cars to fill that psychological void in his teens. Well, maybe that’s a bit too far.
In other news, we got family pictures taken yesterday. That may sound simple, but it turns into a whole-day affair. We planned to spend most of the afternoon and early evening at the mall as Kira pored over the photos and decided which ones to buy. As such, we had to pack up a change of clothes for Carver, whose photo-friendly pants were a bit too big, along with diapers and such. As we pulled into the parking space, it became apparent that we had left behind the all-important diaper bag. Panic struck.
We thought through our options as we sat waiting for our session to begin. We were a good 25 minutes from home. We could survive without Carver’s change of clothes, but the diaper issue was far more troubling. These boys are ticking time bombs. Kira peeked into Hakan’s diaper, just to see, and sure enough, he had unloaded. I was ready to throw in the towel when Kira saw a mother of another young child walking past. She dashed over and asked if she could spare a diaper. To our delight, the diaper was even the correct size! We all learned a valuable lesson about checking twice before heading across town.
This week was quite the start to our year. Hopefully things just get simpler?