Butter vs. Speed Bump

I was looking for my next blog story. Luckily for me, I did not have to look far – or turn too much – just 2 degrees to the right to be precise…where my precious ‘diabolical’ 2-year-old child sat…with her foot jammed inside a FiSheR PRiCe school bus.

It seems I am always recounting stories about my 2-year-old. Well, they don’t call them the TeRRible tWo’s for nothing. I’m sure the name wasn’t derived by some bored mom who decided to start name-calling.

Alright, I can’t vouch for that. Because at this particular moment, my lips are pursed tightly as I begin greasing down her foot like a baby hog.

When you blog, you hope for a good story to write about, right?
So why does fate intervene and slap you upside the head and laugh at you mockingly? I can hear someone singing, “Your daughter’s foot is stuck in a truck! Your daughter’s foot is stuck…HAHAHA- GOOD LUCK!”

It’s not like I have to go hunting for these stories! My soon-to-be 3 year old and nearly 1 year old supply enough material to allow me to sit around a campfire with an endless marathon of dramatic stories.

I have more potty stories than an incontinent grandpa.

Today, I tell myself, I must focus on only making it through today…and keeping the kids alive until sundown…

So- you would think there’s nothing unusual about a kid playing with a school bus.
(Do you hear it? Do you hear that derisive laughter? Lean a little closer to your computer…)
That was not a trick question. There is nothing unusual about a kid playing with the little yellow school buses that every household owns…not unless it’s MY kid.

So, as I turn, she has lodged her foot through the windshield of the bus. Her foot was stuck. It was as stuck as a wad of gum in hair...or caramelized marshmallows in your microwave.
Oh! Oh! How about, as stuck as the ankle is to the foot!
(That’s a great analogy!) (You are so cleaver, Camryn. “I know.” Sigh.)

For the next hour, my agenda is full.
I feel like I’m playing with one of those annoying rubrics cubes, trying to figure out the pattern, wondering which way to turn it, only this has an ankle attached. (...And it’s good and stuck to the foot!) (I am SOoOo pathetic….)

Well, I finally try the old fashioned ‘butter’ trick. I grab my trusty spray butter and VoiLA!
It doesn’t work.

I have now accepted her fate. She has added a new accessory to her body- and it’s like an ugly 3-D tattoo that won’t come off.

I finally determine I need help with this. I decide to take her to daddy- who happens to be a Nurse Practitioner who handles ‘urgent care’ things. Okay- I have no expectations about what he can do for her. She hasn’t shoved a bean up her nose, nor does she need medical treatment- I just want him to FiX iT and make it all better…surely he has a saw in his office that will cut through the plastic…

That’s what people do. We go to the doctor and expect them to fix it.
Your child has an earache- you want an antibiotic. You have back pain – you demand lortab. Your daughter has a 16” monstrosity stuck to her foot – you expect them to cut it off, saw it off, you don’t CARE, you just want it FIXED. So that is what we did. We’re going to the doctor, even if it is a fisher price problem…that has nothing to do with an actual medical condition….

So, I grab her clothes, determined that ‘fisher price’ daddy will miraculously fix it.
I put her in a nice shirt and I’m ready for the pants when-
“How the heck am I going to put on her pants!?”

The 2-year-old is now going to daddy’s office half-naked.

Oh- and of course, in the process, she develops a poopy diaper. I immediately enlist my 5-year-old assistant to come and ‘hold up’ the leg to stabilize the school bus that is now a dead weight on my daughter’s ankle. That was fun. My 2-year-old is crying and the 5-year-old is having a coughing fit, sobbing, “it stinks!” as she tries to leave.

But moms have 8 arms and 8 legs and I use one of them to curl around her body. I am now a contortionist as I am holding down the 2-year-old, changing the diaper, blocking my 11 month old baby from crawling up on the 2-year-old to watch and pull her ponytail, AND trying to keep my leg pinned on the hysterical, coughing 5-year-old.
All the while, my eyes are on the floating fisher price bus dangling from my daughter’s foot, hoping the 5-year-old doesn’t let go because of the stench, and inadvertently drop my daughter’s leg On ToP of the baby’s head like an anvil, which would pin my arms under a poopy BuM…..

That was one of the toughest diapers I have ever changed.

Now we’re ready. So I strap her into the car, big Frankenstein bus-foot and all.
I load four kids into car seats. (Yes, four. The fourth kid is home sick from school, and loading everyone into the car is a ten-minute process) I grab the diaper bag, the blankets and bottles, I even grab the camera! So- I load everything up and drive away.

I kid you not, we drive 5 houses down and go over a speed bump and guess what? That stupid yellow bus slides right off her foot!
“ARE YOU KiDDinG ME????!!!” I screech.

After an entire hour of wiggling and jerking and playing 'rubrics cube' with her ankle, after greasing it down like a little piggy with spray butter (because I wasn’t going to scoop up a handful from the butter tub with my bare hands. EW!)
After loading up the kids, fixing bottles, grabbing snacks, and driving out of the driveway, NoW it decides to fall off?

Speed bump therapy…who knew?
I will remember this and file it away. I now understand the power of this new technique.

The next time one of my kids has a loose tooth, I’m going to race her over the nearest speed bump!

The kid in the bus goes, “wha, wha, WHA!”




The funny thing about his photo- if you follow the curve of her leg
going into the bus, and where my foot pokes out, it looks like the kid has one long freakish foot!
BTW- I don't recommend the Parkay brand...




The 2-year-old looks happy, but those are tears on her face. She only smiled because I brought out the camera. That’s what we mom's do. We see something funny- even with our kids' in pain- we run for the camera anyway...
“Hold on kiddo, this is great stuff!”
What a good sport!

"Yah! Wahoo! We went ARoUnD the block!"