The Three Stooges, in other words, my son

EDITOR’S NOTE: This edition’s Happy Trails was supposed to feature the second installment of “The health-insurance blues,” but (and I’m sure there’s a pun in here somewhere), I came down with the cold that’s going around right now, which is pushing back part two until the March 8 edition. There are a number of technicalities in the second installment, and my fuzzy thinking and “padded” thoughts wouldn’t make for a very cohesive story. I know many of you were looking forward to the next installment, so please accept my apologies. Until then, please enjoy these tidbits about this absolutely crazy role I continually find myself in every day. You know the one, it’s called parenting!

I’ve come to realization that living with a one year old is like living with The Three Stooges. Just the other day, my son knocked over my coffee (sending the coffee onto my keyboard and under my monitor), slammed my fingers in a desk drawer, and poked me in the eye. He did this literally consecutively, one hit after the other.

Put a one year old in a ring with a bonafide ninja, and I’ll put my money on the one year old. You just can’t block them.

Bath time: Apparently his bath time is also my bath time. And Johnson and Johnson has some explaining to do about their “no tears” shampoo. That stuff stings! No wonder my son wants to beat me up on a daily basis.

Speaking of aches and pains, my son is indirectly responsible for the condition in which I find myself waking up every morning: neck ache, back ache, shoulder ache, joint aches. All this because I’ve become a 39-year-old one year old. I’m literally doing things I haven’t done since I were his age. From about 7 p.m. every night to his bed time, I’m on my hands and knees or rolling around on the floor.

At least he provides great exercise for me. For instance. there’s no need for a stairmaster in my life because my son loves to climb up the stairs. He gets really proud of himself for doing so, too, and I’m pretty proud of myself, too, for going up and down the stairs about a hundred times in one hour.

Being an active, mostly walking one year old (he’s actually just about fifteen months), though, means he’s not immune to his own bumps and bruises and scrapes. In fact, he already has his very first scar just above his right eyebrow from banging his head into the corner of my desk. But you know that saying “You should see the other guy.” My son could say that, too. Except I’m the other guy.

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