Someone had a bad week...

Friday afternoon I received a text from Kate. She had given Samantha a bloody nose. She had come down to the landing, and dropped a pencil box into Samantha’s hands. Before Sammy could close her hands around the box, it bounced, crashing into her nose and unleashing a torrent of blood. This was the capper for a rough week for Sammy-Lou-Who.

Monday afternoon Kate took our calico, Marilyn to the vet. She had been extremely lethargic, and would not let anyone touch her. The feline had crawled up under an end table, and stayed there for over fifteen hours. After a battery of tests it was determined that Marilyn had feline leukemia, and would have to be put down. We had not been prepared for this, and I found myself breaking the news to my kids at the dinner table: Marilyn would not be coming home. I expected Whitney to be emotional about the news, and she was. But I didn’t expect Samantha to take it as hard as she did. She was inconsolable.

We have since found that Marilyn’s brother, Joe also tested positive, and will have to be put down. Because of the circumstances of their birth (in a window well, to a stray) they were probably born with it, and their vaccinations could not prevent the inevitable.

On Wednesday, Kate took Samantha to see a dermatologist to address an outbreak of warts on the child’s hands, feet and lip. Kate had to have the pleasure of wrapping her arms and legs around Sam, to hold her still while the doctor froze the warts. We have since had to keep her lubed up with a cream that stings, but we have found that she is much more amenable to putting on the cream when we explain that failure to do so might mean another trip to the dermatologist. Though, that might happen anyway…

All of this on top of the fact that Samantha’s school science experiment has not gone according to plan. Several weeks ago we went to Home Depot and bought five stalks of the same common house plant. She has been ‘feeding’ them each something different: water, orange juice, milk, root beer and diet coke. Her hypothesis was that the one being fed orange juice would do the best, and the rest would die. Orange juice has vitamins, after all. We had to replicate the experiment three times, which means that Kate had to make another trip to the Depot for ten more plants. Now, several weeks later, we have 15 plants in our kitchen, and none of the damn things will die! The orange juice drinkers have mold growing at the bases, and the milk eaters stink to high heaven.

I tried to explain to Samantha that this was not a bad thing: What’s not important is that you are proven right, but that you learn from the experiment. All that we learned from this trial is that the little bastards are resilient.

I told Samantha not to worry, and to keep her glass half full. The upside from having a bad week is being able to look forward to how much better next week can be…

What’s in a Name?

For those who don’t already know, Kate and I once again find ourselves deciding on baby names. We have decided that we will not find out the baby’s gender until the arrival date in May-ish. So we have to be prepared with both boy and girl names. Staying true to my word, I will not give away what our top picks are. I can say, however, that Kate still rules out my top pick for a girl name: Laverne Ann Shirley. We have also decided against some of Bean’s favorite picks: Derek, CC, Thurman, Mariano, Lou, Babe and Mickey.

As we sat around the kitchen table talking about names, the conversation soon turned toward maiden names, I’m not sure how. Kate explained to the kids why women (and sometimes men) take the names of their spouses when wed. Fortunately the kids didn’t ask me why I didn’t take Kate’s name when we were married. ‘Chris Christiansen’ just didn’t have a ring that resonated with me. Samantha twittered and giggled when Kate asked whose name she wanted to take when she got married, but wouldn’t answer.

Patrick then asked ‘Can I change my name?’ Having been really happy with the choice ‘Patrick’ I was taken back.

‘Why would you want to change your name?’ Kate asked.

Patrick’s demeanor suddenly changed and he burst into tears. ‘I hate my name!’ he said. ‘Every day when I get to school a kid named Isaac comes up to me and yells ‘get back to your TV show!’’

I stared at him for a moment until I made the connection: Patrick Starfish from SpongeBob Squarepants.

‘Seriously?’ asked, laughing despite his tears. ‘Patrick. When he says that to you, just point at him and laugh and say ‘You still watch SpongeBob? I stopped watching that when I was like 4!’’ This seemed to help him a bit.

‘Patrick’ Kate said. ‘It doesn’t matter if you change your name. He will still find some reason to tease you. When I was a kid I was Kathryn Mary Christiansen.’ The kids didn’t quite understand the Catholic school girl reference.

‘When you were a kid, did other kids call you ‘Chris Swirley’?’

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘And if anyone calls you that, you have my permission to give them one.’ This seemed to help, as the image of flushing someone made him laugh.

I don’t feel bad for Patrick, or any of my kids who get taunted because of their names. Surely it happens to everyone (and don’t call me ‘Shirley’). Even Whitney’s own jerk of a father refers to her as ‘Whitnerd’. I myself also remember giving as well as I got to my elementary school peers calling Donovan ‘Dorkovan’ and Dennis ‘Pennis’ and thinking that I was oh, so clever.

And I certainly won’t feel bad if I get a call from the principal to tell me that my son gave a swirley to someone who taunted him about his name…