Krim's Open Salon Blog

An argument for birth control

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 23:10:01 -0400

If you already have children, I'm sorry... it's too late for you. I wish I could have shared this story with you sooner, before you made that catastrophic mistake, but go in peace. I'll pray for you.

Those of you who are giving some serious thought to reproducing, please read this. You may laugh, but please remember that one day THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU. It might not be soon, and it probably won't be exactly this way, but someday you will find yourself in a similar situation. And as you shake your fist and rue the day you left the condom in its little foil wrapper, don't say I didn't warn you.

Let me explain.

My husband and I have been blessed with a child who rarely gets sick. The occasional head cold, a case of pinkeye and one vomiting session that was the result of drinking a container of sour spray candy, but that was pretty much it. Until last summer. His camp counselor called me in the middle of the day to tell me that he was complaining of a bad headache. I went to pick him up and he did indeed have a fever. By that evening it had gone up to 102 degrees. It came down with some Children's Motrin and we settled him in for the night.

The fever continued the next day, as did the headache, and when it got up to 104, we decided to call the advice nurse. His only symptoms were the headache and the fever so, of course, we were all worried about meningitis. We got him to the emergency room, through triage and into a room where he was hooked up to IV fluids and given some more Motrin. The doctor looked him over and decided on a lumbar puncture to rule out the scary stuff.

A lumbar puncture, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is also known as a spinal tap. It involves inserting a long needle into the base of the back and extracting fluid from around the spinal cord. I was told that in medical terminology, it doesn't have an umlaut over the "n." I also don't think the doctor appreciated my husband's impromptu rendition of "Stonehenge."

The kid was amazing during the procedure. He was a little scared, but thought the needle was cool and "Stonehenge" was the 2nd best song ever - after Weird Al's "White and Nerdy." After it was over, he fell asleep and we waited for the results.

All told, we were in the hospital for 8 hours. The tests came back normal, so we were told it was just a bad virus and we could take him home. So off we went, armed with a new bottle of Children's Motrin and plans for a restless night. It was 2:00am when we got home.

That's when it got fun.

We had pulled out the sofa bed in the TV room so he wouldn't have to climb up and down out of his loft bed in the middle of the night. We sent him off to get his pajamas on and to use the bathroom while we did the same in our room upstairs. I was planning to stay in the TV room with him, at least until he fell asleep. We were getting undressed when we heard a voice from downstairs say, "Daddy, I need you." My husband went downstairs and about 5 seconds later he yelled, "Get down here NOW!"

I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, which at that point looked like a crime scene. There was blood everywhere - running down our son's arm, puddling on the floor - I'm sure that, to this day, if we let Gil Grissom in with luminal and a black light, we'd be arrested for murder. It took me a minute to realize what had happened.

To be fair to my otherwise bright child, it was 2 in the morning and he was running a fever, but he wanted to cut the plastic hospital bracelet off his wrist before he went to bed. We keep the scissors in a drawer by the stove. However, I had brought them upstairs earlier that day and hadn't returned them. Now, he could have asked where they were or just kept the bracelet on, but he decided to use the other sharp thing we keep in that drawer.

When my husband was in college, he sold Cutco, the world's finest cutlery. At one point, he sold enough to win an 8 inch, serrated hunting knife. We've never used this knife, but for some reason, we've never gotten rid of it, either. We've kept it, sheathed, in the back of the kitchen utility drawer through 12 years and 9 different apartments. I don't think I'd ever seen it outside of its sheath in all that time. But this is what our child decided to use to cut off the plastic bracelet.

Of course, he sliced his thumb. It bled a lot, but it wasn't too deep. That wasn't the problem. When he cut his thumb, he dropped the knife.

And chopped off the tip of his big toe.

It was the ball of his toe, behind the nail, and he chopped through a huge chunk of it, but not all the way through, so it was still hanging there by a small flap of skin.

So at this point, he's bleeding profusely, I'm applying pressure to his thumb, my husband has his toe wrapped in a dishtowel trying to stop the flow. Together, we lift him up onto the counter to better stop the bleeding and it's at that exact moment that a new virus symptom shows up and the kid begins to throw up. Everywhere. Violently.

So there we were, 2:00 in the morning, sleep-deprived, exhausted, covered in blood and vomit. And we started to laugh. All three of us. Even the kid, between heaving, was laughing. Because, really, what else was there to do at that point? We cleaned him up, bandaged his thumb, put the flap of toe back in place and covered it with neosporin and gauze and snuggled up in the sofabed for a night of gauging his temperature and holding his hair back. And chuckling.

OK, so I don't exactly rue the day we had run out of condoms and decide to chance it. I would have missed out on one of the best nights ever.

The PTA has gone too far

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:10:39 -0400

My son just started middle school in an upscale, wealthy suburban school district. We don't actually live in that district, but because my husband teaches high school there, we were granted an interdistrict transfer. Since my husband and I are both teachers (and I'm 30 miles away) this was a perfect solution and has been working incredibly well.

Both mine and my husband's schools are wealthy. His is public but in a beautiful area, and I teach at one of the most prestigious private schools in our city, so we're used to dealing with rich parents in our "teacher roles." However, this is the first time we've ever been their peers.

The PTA of the middle school introduced a new fundraiser this year. They requested that each family donate $100 per child and, to encourage participation, had a party on the field at lunch last Friday afternoon. IF you donate $100 or more, THEN your child would get a root beer float.

At first I thought I misunderstood, but then the signs started going up around campus and in the roundabout drop off area and it became clear that they had every intention of publicly denying treats to kids whose parents didn't give money. I wrote an email to the principal and was told she would be "monitoring the program" but that she had approved it. I am completely baffled how any thinking, reasoning adult would decide that this was OK.

Has anything like this ever gone on in anyone else's school? The tuition where I teach (middle school) is over $30,000 a year and every teacher and administrator I spoke to there was flabbergasted. I am at a loss as to what to do, but I know something needs to be done.

They had the party last Friday and there were a number of kids who didn't get root beer floats. Although I had donated before I understood the program, we had been so incensed about it that our son opted to not collect his on principle (at least that's what he told us). So what do I do now?

The PTA has gone too far

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:10:56 -0400

An argument for birth control.

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:12:48 -0500

If you already have children, I'm sorry... it's too late for you. I wish I could have shared this story with you sooner, before you made that catastrophic mistake, but go in peace. I'll pray for you.

Let me explain.

My husband, Chris, and I have been blessed with a child who rarely gets sick. The occasional head cold, a case of pinkeye and one vomiting session that was the result of drinking a container of sour spray candy, but that was pretty much it. Until last summer. His camp counselor called me in the middle of the day to tell me that Max was complaining of a headache and a "stiff soft palate." (I should explain that both his parents are drama/voice teachers and he has a unique vocabulary.) I went to pick him up and he did indeed have a fever. By that evening it had gone up to 102 degrees. It came down with some Children's Motrin and we settled him in for the night.

The fever continued the next day, as did the headache, and when it got up to 104, we decided to call the advice nurse. His only symptoms were the headache and the fever (the throat was fine by then) so of course we were all worried about meningitis. We got him to the emergency room, through triage and into a room where he was hooked up to IV fluids and given some more Motrin. The doctor looked him over and decided on a lumbar puncture to rule out the scary stuff.

Max was amazing during the procedure. He was a little scared, but thought the needle was cool and "Stonehenge" was the 2nd best song ever - after "White and Nerdy." After it was over, he fell asleep and we waited for the results.

That's when it got fun.

We had pulled out the sofa bed in the TV room so Max wouldn't have to climb up and down out of his loft bed in the middle of the night. We sent him off to get his pajamas on and to use the bathroom while we did the same in our room upstairs. I was planning to stay in the TV room with Max, at least until he fell asleep. We were getting undressed when we heard a voice from downstairs say, "Daddy, I need you." Chris went downstairs and about 5 seconds later he yelled, "Kristin, get down here NOW!"

I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, which at that point looked like a crime scene. There was blood everywhere - running down Max's arm, puddling on the floor - I'm sure that, to this day, if we let Gil Grissom in with luminal and a black light, we'd be arrested for murder. It took me a minute to realize what had happened.

To be fair to my otherwise bright child, it was 2 in the morning and he was running a fever, but Max wanted to cut the plastic hospital bracelet off his wrist before he went to bed. We keep the scissors in a drawer by the stove. However, I had brought them upstairs earlier that day and hadn't returned them. Now, he could have asked where they were or just kept the bracelet on, but he decided to use the other sharp thing we keep in that drawer.

When Chris was in college, he sold Cutco, the world's finest cutlery. At one point, he sold enough to win an 8 inch, serrated hunting knife. We've never used this knife, but for some reason, we've never gotten rid of it, either. We've kept it, sheathed, in the back of the kitchen utility drawer through 12 years and 9 different apartments and houses. I don't think I'd ever seen it outside of its sheath in all that time. But this is what Max decided to use to cut off the plastic bracelet.

Of course, he sliced his thumb. It bled a lot, but it wasn't too deep. That wasn't the problem. When he cut his thumb, he dropped the knife.

And chopped off the tip of his big toe.

It was the ball of his toe, behind the nail, and he chopped through a huge chunk of it, but not all the way through, so it was still hanging there by a small flap of skin.

So at this point, he's bleeding profusely, I'm applying pressure to his thumb, Chris has his toe wrapped in a dishtowel trying to stop the flow. Together, we lift him up onto the counter to better stop the bleeding and it's at that exact moment that a new virus symptom shows up and Max begins to throw up. Everywhere. Violently.

So there we were, 2:00 in the morning, sleep-deprived, exhausted, covered in blood and vomit. And we started to laugh. All three of us. Even Max, between heaving, was laughing. Because, really, what else was there to do at that point? We cleaned him up, bandaged his thumb, put the flap of toe back in place and covered it with neosporin and gauze and snuggled up in the sofabed for a night of gauging his temperature and holding his hair back. And chuckling.

OK, so I don't exactly rue the day we had run out of condoms and decide to chance it. I would have missed out on one of the best nights ever.