Brother bought a Cocoa Bean (HOL 86(

House of Laughter 86

Friday morning, my beautiful wife Nancy, sat on the edge of our bed and shook me gently to wake me up.

“Matt, Isaac has a fever of 100 and they won’t let him go to school, and I have the librarian conference today, and I may be able to leave early, but you could check his temperature again in about thirty minutes, and take a half day, but I have to leave right now since I am meeting my car pool……So what are you going to do?”

“Well honey, seeing as I’ve only been aware of a the situation now for ten seconds, I will defer to your judgment.” Nancy left for her conference, and I went up stairs to check on the boy.

His forehead was warm to touch. I placed the electronic thermometer thing in his ear and pressed the button. The display flashed 95.1. I’m no doctor, but I assumed this was incorrect. For the next ten minutes I debated the merits of getting an accurate temperature vs. waking up a potentially ill and therefore cranky three year old by shoving something deeply into his ear. I finally managed to get a second 100.0 reading and concluded that it was accurate. I also managed to wake up a cranky sick boy who wanted to go to school.

Eventually he fell back asleep until almost 11:00 that morning. I heard the toilet lid slam shut, and Isaac be-bopped down the stairs happy as a clam. We watched “Nightmare Before Christmas”, and played “Wii”.

After Nancy came home, he had a tantrum and said he didn’t want to go trick or treating. I made him come downstairs and sat him behind a half of a grilled cheese sandwich. Nancy and I definitely swap off being the disciplinarian. That night I told him if he didn’t eat his sandwich he wouldn’t have any treats that night. He refused to eat, so he did not get a treat the whole night. (On the way home from visiting friends, I finally let him have one Tootsie Pop since he had been perfectly behaved at two different friends’ houses.)

The next morning, it was Nancy’s turn to be the heavy. By the time I crawled out of bed at 9:00, Isaac and Nancy had already had breakfast. I asked if he had any treats. Nancy said, “No it’s still morning”. To which I asked, “Weren’t you ever a child?”

Isaac if you are reading this, I went to bat for you, and you got treats the morning after Halloween..

Saturday night we were watching the Florida/ Georgia game at a restaurant, when a campaign commercial came on one of the muted TVs. Isaac jumped up, pointed and yelled, “There’s Obama!” in the same excited voice he uses when he sees Mickey Mouse on TV.

Sunday morning, Isaac came down to make sure we were up on time despite the clocks moving back. He came to our room, and noticing, Nancy’s sexy pink flannel pajamas with sock monkeys said, “I’ll be right back” and ran up stairs. He returned with a stuffed Curious George, handed it to Nancy and said, “You need this since you have monkeys on your pajamas.”

This morning on the way to Daycare, Isaac and I were listening to Southern Culture on the Skid’s song “Banana Pudding”. He and I sang the chorus out loud together”

“Banana Pudding! Banana Pudding!”

When I went to get him out of the truck at daycare, his song had morphed to

“Banana in Cocoa bean! Banana in Cocoa bean!”

At first I thought this was something from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (Cocoa beans are mentioned several times in the movie), but then he sang,

“Banana in Cocoa bean Banana in Cocoa bean…Call the doctor woke him up”

And I realized he was singing the newly created second verse to “Coconut” (Put the lime in the coconut, drink the bowl up.)

When I got home tonight, I told Nancy about a phone call to my sister. My nephew had been bit by another little boy at his school. Isaac overheard our conversation and about halfway through dinner he started asking questions:

“Did Eli get bit?”

“Was the other little boy bad?”

“Which arm did he get bit on?”

“Did he get bit on the cheek?”

“Did the skin come off?”

The questions kept coming until Isaac talked to Eli on the phone. As best I can tell the conversation consisted of Eli telling Isaac to talk louder, and Isaac telling a story about falling on his stroller yesterday and bloodying up his own knee.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt