Croupiness!

Welcome to Schorpfest '07, featuring a sick little boy who thinks he is either Puppy Boy or Clifford the Big Red dog, and his mommy, who is just glad that it's Friday night and Daddy is home to rescue her. (Sorry in advance if none of the following is at all funny; I've been at home in bitter cold weather with a sick child since Wednesday afternoon. The walls are closing in and I'm getting punchy.)

It turns out that illness this week was rather well-timed, as friends of my in-laws gave Liam some Clifford books, and he loves them, which is sweet, and I would never discourage a child from reading. But! Liam is now insisting he is a large dog named Clifford, that he has red fur, and that his friends Mac, Cleo, and T-Bone are right beside him. And I just wasn't up to explaining that to his teacher this morning as she would have undoubtedly taken a dim view of the whole situation. But between a croupy cough, fever, and record low wind chills this morning, we had valid reason to skip school and thus the whole media-exposure-of-children discussion. Phew.


Liam insisted I take this picture to document his new friends. Of course you can all see Clifford and his friend The Great Doggler, but what you truly need to admire is the fact that immediately to Clifford's left are Mac, T-Bone, and Cleo, in all their glory. Can you believe we've been blessed by the presence of such canine superstars?

(Also what is hard to believe is that a croupy, feverish kid can look so happy and healthy in a picture. How the heck does that happen? And why can't I look even half that healthy on an average day?)

Anyway.

Before I make this whole deal sound excruciatingly awful, I have to point out that little boys become cuddly when sick. It's really, really sweet to be reminded that even if Liam has been giving a darn good impression of an independent big boy recently, he still needs his Mommy from time to time. So he's been sitting in my lap a lot, and we've been reading books and singing songs. Which is good. And fun. And leads to the following anecdote, with which I finish this post and retire to bed.

Liam (sitting by his toy piano): "Daddy, would you like to join my team?"

Kevin: "Sure. What does this team do?"

Liam: "They write songs. New songs. Like this one - I call it 'Old MacDonald Had An Airport.' Are you ready? Heeeeeeere weeeeeee go!!!"

Liam bangs on the keyboard and sings....

"Old MacDonald had an airport,

E I E I O!

And on that airport he had a helicopter,

E I E I O!

With a chop-chop here,

And a chop-chop there,

Here a chop, there a chop,

Everywhere a chop-chop.

Old Macdonald had an airport,

E I E I O!!!!!"

Night-night, all!