Sam hit a couple of unfortunate milestones this week, sometimes literally. The first is “Baby’s First Hacked Up Wad of Phlegm,” which she produced on account of having a little chest cold this week. It was almost comical on account of the way she had no idea what to do with it. Less comical is the second milestone, which was “Baby’s First Busted Lip.” An energetic Sam was running around, carrying her blanket behind her when she got tangled up and went face first into some piece of injection-molded hard plastic from her friends at Fisher Price. I didn’t think much of it at first even with the subsequent wailing, because frankly she does this kind of thing several times a day. When I did start to freak out, though, was when Sam turned to me and showed me how blood was streaming down the lower half of her face.
I shrieked something like “AAAHH! She’s bleeding!” in response to Ger’s almost nonchalant question of “What happened?” from the other room. I started running in circles as Ger came bounding in, fully expecting to see her daughter covered in blood a la Sissy Spacek in the last 30 minutes of Carrie.
I continued hopping from one foot to the other, befuddled and wondering what to do. My first instinct was to have Sam drink a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, but that didn’t seem right and we just dabbed it on her lip instead. We really needn’t worry, as it was just a little cut that stopped bleeding after a few minutes. Sam was understandably pissed at the entire world, though, and we decided to just put her and her now puffy lip to bed.
Pictures!
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As you might see from the pictures above, we had another outing this week. Friends Gary and Jennifer were visiting from out of town, which gave us a chance to play tour guides. We went to Sea World, which Sam actually seemed to enjoy. Well, mostly. There was once incident at the dolphin show.
During one point in the show a supposed family comes down from the audience to participate in the act –feeding the dolphins, holding up a wire for them to jump over, that kind of thing. Eventually the daughter poses with the animals while Mom leans out over the water to try and get a good photograph. Uh oh! Mom leans out too far and falls into the water, causing all kinds of commotion. The audience gasps, the music in the background becomes more dramatic (which, by the way, was your first real clue that this is all an act), and “Mom” panics and splashes towards safety before being rescued by her new aquatic friends before revealing that she is actually a Sea World actor in disguise.
This entire chain of events completely freaked Sam out. As soon as “Mom” fell in the water, Sam went from smiling and pointing at the dolphins to an incurable, shrieking, basket case. I’m not sure she even understood enough to make talk of falling for the ruse meaningful, but I do think she picked up on the emotional change in the audience around her, as well as the new dramatic music and the general commotion. For the rest of the show she was inconsolable, and on the way out she even pointed back at the dolphin tank and shouted “No! No!”
So there you have it: my daughter now hates dolphins. Thanks a lot, Sea World.
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