Adventures Of Fatherhood

Adventures Of Fatherhood
Fatherhood Headshot19

It’s been a rough week or so.

Along with the Ravens’ devastating loss on Sunday, both kids have been sick and eventually Pam and I came down with something, too.

Whenever a parent gets sick, it’s a big deal because the other has to step up and fill the void. However, when both parents come down with something, the ailments have to basically be ignored in favor of the business at hand — parenting the kids.

Put together two ill parents with two sick kids and it’s a difficult situation.

Within the last week or so, Carson came down with pneumonia and Beckett got bronchitis, and each also had some sort of bacterial infection that resulted in some unfortunately messy situations that do not require further detail here.

Inevitably, Pam and I joined them on the sick train, but in varying intensities. Due to the kids being sick and needing breathing treatments every six hours, we had to simply ignore how we felt and forge on, extending our sicknesses more than likely because we were not taking care of ourselves.

Soon enough, as they are prone to do, both kids were on the mend and soon running circles around their sick parents more than they normally do.

Unfortunately, we just don’t recover as fast as the little ones.
———————
Beckett has a new favorite television show — “Wipeout”.

It’s an odd show for a 3 ½-year-old to enjoy, but he’s obsessed with it to the point I spent about 10 minutes last weekend searching for old episodes through Comcast’s OnDemand. Unfortunately, I was not able to locate it anywhere.

The good news for him, at least, is we have one show on DVR so he watches that often.

It’s funny how this interest came about and proves you just never know what’s going to strike a kid’s fancy.

He was spending some quality time with his favorite neighbor and “Wipeout” was the first show that popped on the screen when the television was turned on.

It’s been a love affair ever since.

What’s most peculiar about the show is he doesn’t find the antics of the show’s participants funny like I do.
If you haven’t seen it, the contestants are charged with completing an obstacle course that usually is elevated over water. Invariably, these people take dozens of nasty falls that are hilarious to watch from the comfort of your own home.

Rather than laughing or even cringing at some of these falls, Beckett just stares in fascination at the screen as if he’s trying to memorize exactly what they are doing. Either that or he’s simply in awe.

Either way, I think we need to be prepared for him to try and emulate these folks at some point in the future and that’s scary.

——————————
 For three hours on Monday morning, it was just me and Carson in a six-foot by 10-foot room.

As far as I know I don’t have any sort of disorder pertained to close quarters, but I admit it was quite a challenge to the nerves to be situated in this room with just me and my 2-year-old for that length of time.

We found ourselves in this predicament as a result of an appointment with an allergist in Salisbury to determine whether Carson still had a dairy allergy.

Soon after he was born, it was discovered Carson was allergic to dairy products. Subsequently, his diet has been quite different than everyone else in the household.

Monday was a day we had been looking forward to for some time, as it was when he would be orally challenged to see if his dairy allergy was still present.

A number of other procedures, such as skin and blood tests, had been done in advance of this challenge, providing indications he may have simply outgrown it.

Nothing, however, was official until he actually consumed milk in a controlled setting, such as this small room in a doctor’s office.

What this process entailed was a lot of waiting and hoping there would no reaction to each challenge.

Basically, he had a thimble-sized portion of milk first and then we waited to see if he had any sort of reaction.

Fifteen minutes later, he drank double that amount and so on and so on. The process continued for the next three hours until he had an entire serving of milk.

During the first hour, all was fine. In the second hour, I started to become unglued a little, as the small confines and the active 2-year-old boy with a penchant for climbing in the cabinets and tearing pages out of magazines started to take its toll on my mental psyche.

Soon after that first hour, I requested permission to cruise the halls of the doctor’s office with Carson. Fortunately, the staff seemed to commiserate and saw the signs of a frazzled father — the shirt that was tucked in when I arrived was now out; that same shirt that was dry and clean was not any longer; the sunglasses that I wore in were now shattered; one of Carson’s shoes was somehow missing; and the room had completely redecorated by the 2-year-old.

The long process was all worth it, as he had no reaction to the milk and we are now slowly introducing him to dairy products that will eventually lead to someday soon a milk shake or ice cream cone. I can’t wait to see his face when he learns of the joys of ice cream, pizza, mac ‘n’ cheese, fried chicken and list goes on and on.

About The Author: Steven Green

Alternative Text

The writer has been with The Dispatch in various capacities since 1995, including serving as editor and publisher since 2004. His previous titles were managing editor, staff writer, sports editor, sales account manager and copy editor. Growing up in Salisbury before moving to Berlin, Green graduated from Worcester Preparatory School in 1993 and graduated from Loyola University Baltimore in 1997 with degrees in Communications (journalism concentration) and Political Science.