How to cure the flu in one glorious moment

I'm beginning to think the flu shot is a big governmental hoax. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist (normally, in a non-Bush administration) and would blame this on the possibility of a watered down vaccination if we'd all had our shots together. But we didn't. And this weekend marked Bruce's third round of flu this year and my near-second (which practically counts since I still technically have a refill left on my appendectomy scripts). 

Maybe our flu shots were fully-loaded and germy toddler snot is just way more powerful than any prevention method manufactured in a lab over years and years and gazillions of research dollars.  It just so happens that Bruce was Parent of the Day at co-op on Thursday and came down with the nastiness on Friday. It wasn't a huge shock, what with that one kid who constantly gives our family the sickness sneezing all over the place and with Bruce's immune system of a pre-teen girl in medieval times. Then again, maybe the co-op's getting some crazy pharmaceutical funding or something and is at the root of all this illness that has me following Bruce  with rubber gloves (watch it) and bleach in a spray bottle.

Thank goodness for some points of light this weekend that diverted our attention from the fact that no, Daddy cannot come out of the bedroom his urpy-feverish-sicky smell haze for a delightful afternoon of Play-Doh and pretending to be Bob and Wendy who are building a new barn for Farmer Pickles (which sounds far more Rated R than it actually is) and the gulps of (*shudder*) Milk of Magnesia, vitamin C and ibuprofen in triplicate I had to take just to keep my body from toppling over the edge into full-blown fludom with Bruce.

The very best moment of our weekend landed right down the block on St. Patrick's Day.

I can't even believe this, but Lil E got to ride in an excavator! A real one, an operating one, a big, giant yellow excavator that we've been admiring for a week, at work in our neighborhood.

If you are/have/know a child who is as obsessed with vehicles as Lil E is (and the club of these two-year-olds is fast-growing), you'll understand what a HUGE deal this is. We took a walk to check out the big hole where the lovely old house was demolished to make room for an evil starter-castle, and were waved inside the gate to get a closer look. The dump truck driver hoisted Lil E up to see the excavator scooping dirt into his rig. Then, in this surreal moment of glory, the excavator guy waved us over and invited Lil E for a spin. There, behind the glass, I watched my boy go silent as the man showed him how to shift the levers to lower and raise the digger full of dirt. For several amazing minutes, I jumped up and down and waved at Lil E, taking many mental pictures and expressing all the complete glee that my boy holding in with a serious look of concentration and shyness.

After he was lowered down to the dump truck driver and then to me and we waved good-bye to our new friends and the construction site, I chattered on about going home to wake up Daddy to tell him. Lil E was pretty quiet and then half-way down the block said, "Oh no! I forgot to dump the dirt into the dump truck!"

He wasn't just riding along with the excavator driver. He was the excavator driver.

Whatever was or wasn't in our flu shots, we are getting good at being sick around here and seem to have our own formula for getting better. Tonight, Bruce actually ate a belated dinner of corned beef and cabbage with the rest of us at a family dinner at my parents' house. And we hunkered down on the couch together, singing silly songs designed to make a small child laugh hysterically and tickled when Lil E begged, "Tickle me some more, pleaaaaaaase!" And of course, we talked about the excavator adventure.

"Guess what?" my dad asked my boy, "YOU drove an excavator! How cool is that?! Give me a high five!"

And Lil E marched over to give a proud high-five, quietly beaming, dimples saying it all.

Comments

[Ivy]

Oh, man! The flu is the worst, but driving an excavator? Nate's hella jealous.

[Hilary]

What's so bad about being paranoid?

*twitch twitch*

Yeah, the flu shot is hogwash, I say.

[Susan]

Oh my goodness, my Max would do just about anything to ride an excavator! When he was about 18 months old, he was fascinated by the book on diggers, trying hard to repeat excavator after me (after refusing to even open the book on motorcycles and the one with the fire truck on the front). When construction started next door when he was 3, and I asked him if he wanted to get up to see the digger, he woke out of a dead sleep and told me that he loves escalators. A year and a half had gone by, and it was morning, so I had no idea what he was talking about, but he went and got the book and said, "See mommy, escalators!" When I laughed and said, oh, you mean excavators, he nodded and repeated it carefully. How do they know these things? His dad lived in Texas until he was 2, and wouldn't have noticed any construction equipment anyway. When I mentioned it at his daycare, they said they would get that kind of toy out since he was interested, so he didn't pick it up there. It's a mystery, ;-).