The Fugitive and the Puppy Groupie

What have J and I been up to lately? Well, by my lack of posting over the past couple of days, you'd think that we've been incredibly busy, right?

Not really- but we've managed to keep ourselves occupied.

You see, about 12 years ago I had this Nova- best damn car I've ever owned, despite the fact that when it rained, water leaked in from all around the windshield and filled the front seat, and it had no floorboard. Nope, not a bit, just some raggedy old carpet that hadn't managed to fray completely away, and underneath that a maze of pipes and engine stuff that was foreign to my 16 year-old mind, and then the road, running right there beneath your feet. It was a little exciting and a little scary to drive. My passengers often kept their feet up on the seat, as if the road might jump up and rip their legs right off. I remedied this by taking the lids off of largish rubbermaid containers in the garage and laying them across the holes. What can I say, I was genius! :) Actually, I did this mostly because I was tired of driving through three or four inches of water and having it all wind up in my lap. It was like riding the log-flume at the local amusement park during rainy season.

Anyway, I promise that this is going somewhere.

My junior year of high school I had this big debate to participate in on the subject of nuclear testing, and, being the good student that I was, I'd done my research, taken a tremendous amount of notes, had pictures, graphs, everything, all taken from books borrowed from the Melbourne Public Library.

Friday afternoon, despite my shyness and awkwarness in front of a crowd, I had managed to do well in the debate, and I was nearly floating on a cloud of relief as I jumped into my old Nova, tossing all of my books into the back seat. Heidi and I celebrated with coffee, cigarettes and a long drive to nowhere.

Nowhere ended up being two exits north on the interstate where my poor clunker blew a gasket and, tail tucked, I had to give in and call my parents to rescue us from a place we weren't supposed to be in the first place.

So the tow truck came, hauled my big rusty baby back to the mechanic, and although I thought I had collected all of the books and stuff from the back seat, I apparently forgot one.


A couple of weeks later I began getting the letters from the library- first the polite ones stating that I had an overdue book, then stating that I must return the book immediately and my fines were $X. I searched and searched my car once I got it back, and after having no luck finding it, assumed that it must have simply slipped through a hole in the floor when the tow truck picked it up. The book was gone.

So I went to the library and asked them how I could go about paying for the book. It was simple. I could pay the list price of the book, plus all of the overdue charges and I'd be free and clear of it. The total was somewuere in the hundred dollar range. Now, I had a job, and I had some money, but have you ever met a 16 year-old who is willing to pay out an entire week's pay over a library book? Me either.

Almost 13 years later, I walk into a public library, J-man in tow. We're going to story time. But something draws me over to the circulation desk. I have to know.

"How do I go about getting a library card?" I ask the elderly gentleman behind the desk.

He asks me if I'm a resident of the county and do I have a driver's license. I nod to both and produce my license. He smiles and welcomes me to the library system while plugging my license number into the computer.

As he's typing away, I'm cringing inside- will the license number cross-reference to my maiden name and will they find my lost book fines? Perhaps the library police of Stephen King fame will come out and take me away. I'm stroking the back of J's head in that nervous way that I have-- something to do with my hands when there's nothing else I can do. By now, those fines must be really hefty. I'm imagining 13 years of book fines.

The sweet old man hands me a plastic card with my name written on the top in large block letters, a map of the county and all of the libraries marked, and a schedule of due dates on various books. That easy!

And I've got this huge weight lifted off of me- after all of these years. I'm no longer a fugitive!

I check out a book for myself, and take J to story time.

Story time was a fiasco. Biscuit, the puppy, was the honored guest. But the person who runs library time for the library must not have any children of her own because she chose to bring out Biscuit and let the kids meet with him first, and then expected them to sit and listen to her read. Nope- not my kid. Once he has something in his mind, he's like Rainman. So there he sat, excitedly exclaiming "Puh-pay! Puh-pay!" and wriggling from my arms, and heading to the doors that puh-pay had exited through, then breaking down into frustrated angry tears. We had to leave with all the other mothers- the ones with older children- glaring at us like the Palm Bay trash that we were. (Did I forget to mention that we were in a library on the "rich" side of town?)

So, he cried all the way home asking for Puppy, and once we got home I looked online to see if maybe puppy would be making an appearance at anoter library story time soon. To my surprise, he'd be at Barnes and Noble the next morning! Oh, I love it when I can cater to my boy that way!

We saw puppy the next morning, and Barnes and Noble has their stuff together when it comes to story-time. They read stories first, were encouraging the kids to join in, making woof-woof noises when Biscuit was getting into trouble and the like. Then, they handed out little staple-bound coloring pages and set big baskets of crayons out for the kids to color while they went to get Biscuit. It all ran so smoothly, and Jonas was delighted that puppy was back for a visit again! He laughed and smiled and pointed, and as long as I was holding him, he'd get close enough to give him a high-five. But when I tried to take pictures he wasn't so eager to be near him.

So, that's what we've done lately.

In other news, he had his two-year checkup last week and I was told that besides his allergies, he's the picture of health. He's in the 97th percentile for height (37 3/4 in) and 93rd for weight (34 lbs), which I find pretty amazing considering all of the short genes he has floating around out there. I guess he'll take after the Woodruff side of the family. It makes me smile to think that he'll be big and tall like Daddy Dean was.

My only concern was that he's had frequent nosebleeds lately- mostly at night, so I know it's not simply because he's a boy and he's got his finger up his nose digging for gold. He had his first one while we were visiting Laura and Doug (who I still owe a new set of nice bedsheets to)and lately he's had one almost daily. Not always major ones, sometimes just a tiny trickle, but there are also the ones like last night, where he wakes up choking on the blood pooled in the back of his throat, and his entire face and pillow are covered with it. Those are the scary ones that make me worry.

His doctor said that it's fairly common in kids with allergies and not to worry too much about it. If they were truly bothersome she'd refer us to the pediatric ENT. She said that it's likely that he's developed a polyp in his nose and that the allergies and constant runny nose make it open up and bleed occasionally. Apparently an ENT can simply cauterize it and end the problem.

For the most part, I'm against medical intervention when things aren't really life-threatening, and if his nosebleeds were simply the type that were a tiny trickle of blood, I probably wouldn't be considering it, but after last night's blood fest and my fear of him choking to death on his own blood that kept me up all night watching him sleep, I'll be getting my referral tomorrow once the pediatrician's office is open.

Anyway, that's the news from 'round these parts. I'll leave you with a picture from our story-time yesterday.