there will be bloed (dutch version)

hands-off parenting style means you might lose a hand

Unbeknownst to each other, last night, at the exact same time, on opposite ends of Los Angeles, my husband and I each said to one of our children: “You have no IDEA how lucky you are.”

One child was at Disneyland with his father, having a solo Daddy/Rowie day. I was not jealous and I didn’t ask no less than 14 times whether or not I could go with them. But that’s neither here nor there! My unspeakable transition into An Adult Woman Who Seriously Enjoys Going to Disneyland can be blamed on my friend Cat, who works for Disney and got me hooked on the stuff by taking me for free our first god knows how many times. Anyway!! Last night on Guardians of the Galaxy, a ride that has a regular wait time of nearly 2 hours, Tyler and Rowan got to ride it three times in A ROW, with no wait in between. The how’s and why’s are boring, but it happened, and Rowan was happy about it but it didn’t appear to be clocking, emotionally, how outrageous the happening was, not enough for Tyler’s standards, anyway.

You don’t understand, my husband urged his son. This NEVER happens. This will NEVER EVER HAPPEN AGAIN. This is serious, outrageous luck!!!!! Now, I won’t get into how absolutely asinine it is that it would be preposterous to go on a ride multiple times in a row after shelling out hundreds of dollars to be at an amusement park whose sole purpose is to amuse with rides, but alas, post-capitalist corporate greed, etc.

On the other side of town, I was hosting a playdate to appease the daughter Left Behind (she has had the opportunity to go to Disneyland 2x more than her brother in the last year, which as anyone with siblings or children knows, is unspeakable and unforgivable, hence Rowan and Tyler going it alone). I told the two smart, capable 7 year-olds girls under no uncertain terms to eat their ice cream snack AT the table, not to take it anywhere else in the house, and to UNDER NO circumstances “do experiments” or even enter the kitchen or pour or mix anything at all. I had to tape an audition in my office and I would be out in 20 minutes.

16 minutes later, Zoe pounded on my office door, sobbing and pouring blood out of her hand and all over the glass door and the floor. Like the climax of The Substance, but for kids.

WHAT HAPPENED?!!! I hollered, rushing to see the wound.

I DON’T WANT TO TELL YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO BE MAD AT MEEEEEEEEE she wailed.

I followed her to the bathroom, where a trail of blood had been shed all up the long hallway and all over the bathroom, an actual crime scene. Well, reader, she had sliced into her finger while cutting lemons using an enormous serrated bread knife “to do an experiment,” the very exact thing I told her not to do. As I was on my knees, mopping up the 451 blood splatters on the rented wood floors, urging her to apply pressure with the towel and not move, figuring out how to take two kids to urgent care and what to do with the puppy while we went, I remembered about that puppy and heard a slurping sound coming from the living room. The other child had taken her CHOCOLATE CHIP ice cream into the living room, the other expressly forbidden thing I said before retreating into my Now-Self-Tape-From-Hell, and Rudy had gotten ahold of it, slurping down every last bite of lethal theobromine. Well, now sweat spontaneously burst forth from my lower back and tears squeezed out of my eyes as I weighed whether or not to go to the VET or HUMAN URGENT CARE first. Obviously my daughter is more important than my dog, but at the end of the day, does ‘tis but a flesh wound take priority over a dog’s entire life? We’re supposed to have at least 12 more years with this guy!!!!!!!!

I took Zoe’s friend by her shoulders and plead with her: HOW MANY SPOONFULS OF YOUR CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM WAS REMAINING BEFORE YOU ABANDONED IT ON THE LIVING ROOM COFFEE TABLE????

Luckily, it was less than 2, so I figured he would probably live. Also luckily, our pediatrician is one of my best friend’s sister, and she had given me permission to text her outside of office hours. I sent her a picture of The Finger and she responded immediately and suggested I come to her house and she would glue the flap of skin back on, no stitches needed (probably).

We arrived, and after 20 minutes of absolute terror screaming from hell about having to wash her wound with soap before getting treated by the pediatricians at home finishing their DINNER, Zoe acquiesced and let me gently clean her flesh wound before calmly sitting in my lap, cheerful, even, as the doctor applied tapes and glues and tourniquets to her tormented finger.

I’m never going to use a knife AGAIN, she sniffled on the car ride home.

You have NO IDEA how lucky you are, I sang as we snaked down some dark side streets. If we weren’t friends with our pediatrician, we would have had to have spent HOURS waiting in an Urgent Care tonight!!!! You just got to sail into their house, interrupt their dinner, and get treated within MINUTES!!!!!!

I think we should go get a manicure when my bandage goes away, Zoe mused.

You think you should…be rewarded for what happened tonight? I clarified.

Yeah. You know. For being BRAVE!!! she pointed her non-bloody index finger in the air in chipper punctuation.

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Things I’ve loved recently:

-Younga Park’s very funny and very relatable take-down of the varying levels of responsibility in her children on her substack

-The Ugly Stepsister, streaming on Hulu/Disney - an outrageously compelling body horror take on the Cinderella tale, from a wildly assured first-timer Norwegian director. Come for the folklore, stay for the rhinoplasty performed before the invention of anesthesia.

This twice-baked croissant from Fondry bakery in Highland Park, stuffed with almond-chestnut cream and threaded on top with chestnut puree yarn!!!!!!! Tyler did a little pirouette after his first bite.

“Now I start to realize that I will most likely only ever have one child. And I regret that. “One is better than none,” a stranger I confided in at a playgroup once told me, as we watched a room full of babies play. I repeat the phrase to myself often, as a talisman of my narrow escape from the annihilating power of my indecisiveness….

“What would you do if you could do whatever you wanted?” I asked a village acquaintance. A question imported from another planet, I realized as soon as it was out of my mouth. “I can’t let myself think like that,” she said. Only in this new light can I clearly see my obscene injury: I am luxuriously, painfully pierced by the problem of partiality, of the necessity of living only one life. But one is better than none.” -Hannah Black’s wonderful essay Mother, Maybe on the decision to have children, via Jessica Stanley’s wonderful Read.Look.Think. (subscribe here!)

-Marty Supreme!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Boy oh boy did I walk out of that movie grinning my ass off

-Kate Berlant’s story about her “run-in” with Leo at Nancy Silverton’s new diner on Larchmont had me gigglingggg on my car ride to the valley

-My new fruit look: banana blazer + apple tee from Fashion Brand Company seen here in the bathroom at our contractor’s office, after Tyler and I argued over how many colors to include in our Altadena rebuild kitchen (him: 2 / me: 7)

-Jad Abumrad’s incredible podcast about Fela Kuti for RadioLab!!!!

-My puppy!!!!!!!!! Bringing me more joy daily than I ever thought possible??? Look at how his ears blow in the wind:

Leave me a comment or press that heart button below, it makes my day (not as much as Rudy, but there are gradations to these things). And if you enjoy this newsletter, please share it! I’m almost to 1,000 subscribers!!