The mark of a mature programmer is willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it's pointless. - Bram Cohen

Segundo was scheduled for a well-child check-up today. The only problem was, he’s not a well child. Neither are Primo, Terzo, or for that matter, Mama. In fact, my house sounds like a tuberculosis ward at the moment.
And my children are beginning to believe Motrin is candy. “Mama, peez I have some medicine?” Segundo asks plaintively. I am a mean mama and buy the dye-free kind, so it’s not as yummy as the purple neon stuff they got at the doctor’s office, but since already I spend most of my free time trying to conquer my Mount Everest of laundry, colorless Motrin bound to be upchucked was the way to go.

After a morning of listening to the two older boys bash each other on the head and fight over Thomas trains and throw things at each other, I decided that they were well enough to go to the doctor after all. (Now that’s a bizarre sentence, hmm?) So I broke the cardinal rule of mothering by waking the baby from his nap, loaded everybody up in the car, and took them to the doctor’s office. Where they proceeded to drape themselves all over the germy furniture in the doctor’s waiting and exam rooms, looking wan and feverish at the same time, doing everything but putting their hands to their foreheads in the universal symbol of the Dying Swan. I felt like I was watching a preschool version of “Camille.”

Of course I could SEE the doctor’s thoughts like they were displayed in a balloon over his head: “Why has this woman dragged three ill children here to my office? To contaminate others, along with every available surface? And why has she not already dosed them all up but good?” He distributed purple Motrin all around, in those plastic little shot glasses, making it look like nothing more than a healthy round of Purple Hooters, and Segundo at least perked up enough to wail halfheartedly when Dr R looked in his ears.

Terzo was so crusty it was embarrassing but I didn’t have the heart to scrub him clean with a wipe from the diaper bag. (Except I’d forgotten the diaper bag…) Anyway, warm damp washcloths in the privacy of our own home provoke enough of a reaction, thank you. (Did I tell you that he’s been snotting so much that once this weekend I went to pick him up from his nap and he was STUCK TO THE SHEET BY THE SNOT OF HIS NOSE?)

So finally, finally, it was all over. (Despite being so ill Seggie is in the 90th percentile for height and weight. Primo better watch his step, Seggie’s gaining on him.) I took them home and fed them pretty much whatever the hell they wanted for lunch and plunked them in front of the TV until it was time for naps. And then H came home and I ran away to my shrink to beg for more Zoloft. Sweet, sweet Zoloft, companion of my heart. You will not be reading any entries about *me* weaning off Zoloft.

Because I get that weirdo eyeball feeling ON the drug. Not to mention I am crabby enough already.

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I am taking a survey - Am I the only mother on the face of the earth who does not allow her children to drink soda?

Back when I was an idealistic pregnant woman, I swore McDonald’s would never cross my children’s lips– and yet they have an extensive and lovely collection of Happy Meal toys. I am not sure what I expected, as I lived on McDonald’s French fries through all three pregnancies’ first trimesters.

I swore I would never hit them, not once, not ever. The very first time Primo ran into the street when I wasn’t looking, I freaked out and whacked him one.

I said righteously, “My children will play happily with an old shoestring and a block of wood.” And yet we have an entire room devoted to their playthings, which could carpet said room when (um, I mean, IF) they are all out at the same time.

I promised they would not drink soda. And yet, they don’t. They have never even tasted soda. They probably believe Coca-Cola is merely some adult drink we must keep in the house so Mama can mix it with her rum. They drink juice, milk, chocolate and/or strawberry milk, even lemonade. But no soda. And yet I see parents feeding their toddlers soda all the time. I just wanted to, you know, mention that. That I find it odd that I actually managed to stick to my guns about something. So I probably should have just said to the pediatrician this morning, “Yes, but I don’t give them soda!” the underlying implication being that I really am NOT the horrible and unfeeling mother I appear to be to the casual observer.

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I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time on my lunch hour today. Wow. What a great book. Andrea, I am glad you pestered me into reading it! (I thought this was an especially interesting companion read to Motherless Brooklyn.) Christopher Boone is just a hell of a character. And I find it ironic that a character who lacks empathy is so empathic himself. Andrea, didn’t you once say to me that you thought that everyone could be a little bit autistic? (Not in any way to diminish people who have been officially diagnosed with autism.) I only bring it up to say that it was a trifle unsettliing to be reading this book about this boy who is supposed to be so officially *different*, so *not* normal, and find myself relating to some of his issues. Sometimes, when I am stressed out, I feel like things are rushing at me, that my brain’s filters are malfunctioning and everything is screaming for attention at once. The Zoloft helps me cope with what I have always referred to as my sensory overload issues. I didn’t expect to find much in common with Christopher, and yet I did.
Also, I am going to make H read it – I have this theory that if he’d been born within the past dozen years instead of more than forty years ago, he’d be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Reference this quote by Bram Cohen: I tend to get obsessed with technical problems, and have a very long attention span, which are obviously good traits for being a programmer, and seem like Asperger's traits, but [because of] not having an almost-identical-except-no-asperger's version of myself, it's hard to compare.
Or, I don’t know, maybe H really is just a sociopath…