SJ Strikes Again

Sometimes your child shows you from an early age that they will have to learn the same lesson repeatedly. SJ is one of those children.

He has stuck metal keys in the outlets, not once but twice. Then he tried to do it a third time. Getting the crap shocked out out of you once seems like it would be sufficient to me.

One time he kept trying to play with the oven. He wanted to open and shut it. I needed to cook with it so I told him "hot" and kept pushing him away from it. The phone rang and, while I was talking, he ran in the kitchen as fast as he could and put his palms on the inside of the oven door. That day, he learned hot, or so I thought.

For some reason, "hot" continues to be a source of fascination. I say,"hot". He repeats the word. Then he touches it anyway. Does he not believe me?

I rarely, if ever, use the front burners on the stove because he can reach them. We tried putting up a stove guard once but that was dismantled within a week.

When I was canning with my friend, Sarah, I had to use the front burner. He stuck his finger in the flame AFTER I SAID HOT ABOUT TEN TIMES!

Last night he was playing with something I thought was safe. It was one of those long metal spatulas that are used for cake decorating. There were no sharp edges. It wasn't heavy enough to fall on his foot and hurt it.

Suddenly I heard shrieking from the kitchen. Now what! I went out and saw the spatula on the floor and I just knew. Sure enough, it was hot to the touch. He was holding his mouth and shrieking.

Dinner had been cooking on the back burner. He took the spatula, warmed it up in the flame, and put it in his mouth. I didn't know what to do. You can't put aloe vera on a tongue!

I was panicked and mad, trying to call our health insurance company's advice line, and yelling a lot. I couldn't find the advice line number. Our old insurance company had it very plainly printed on the card. This company hides it somewhere in the fine print where it takes an hour to find it. You're much more cost effective to them if you're DEAD.

At that moment, my husband came home from work. I told him what happened and he whipped out an ice cube. Duh, why didn't I think of that?

My husband told me he had burned his tongue as a kid and he remembered what he had done. SJ immediately got quiet, partly because of the ice cube and partly because my husband was so much more sympathetic than me.

Once my husband got me on the right track, I hauled out the popsicles and let SJ eat them until he was done.

This kid has such a hard head that there are bound to be many more moments like this in my life. I can hardly wait. Just bring on the valium, please.