a miscarriage.

Do you know someone who has had a miscarriage?

You probably do.

One in four women has had a miscarriage.

If you know me, you know someone who has had a miscarriage.

But let's back up a bit.

When you think about unplanned pregnancy, who do you think about?

Here’s a better question: who DON’T you think about?

You probably don’t think of a 35-year-old married middle-class professional mother with an advanced degree.

Unplanned pregnancies aren’t for people like her.

Until they are.

Unplanned pregnancy carries a stigma - pregnancy in general carries a stigma. The phrase “unplanned pregnancy” tends to go hand-in-hand with assumptions such as “irresponsible,” “careless,” and in the worst company, “slut.”

(The negative assumptions are always about the woman, of course.)

The woman in question would likely not categorize herself as any of those things.

I have been taking the same birth control pill for 15 years with flawless results. I mean, FLAWLESS. You could have set a watch by my period.

Part of that was the pill itself, but the other part was me. You are supposed to take the pill about the same time each day, so I did - religiously. Whenever I was on antibiotics for a sinus infection or the like, I was well aware my birth control would be compromised. 

As a type A personality, I needed to be in total control. If I ever were to get pregnant, it would be in my time and on my terms.

And the first time, it was. With almost alarming speed. After years of speculation, I quit my birth control pills in May 2019 and was pregnant by July.

Now we have a spirited son named Phineas who is currently very much living up to the reputation of the terrible twos.

Motherhood did not come naturally to me, but I was under no impression that it would. Children had never been a goal of mine - I never even played house as a child. I preferred single and childless career woman Barbie.

So when, at the age of 31, I decided could give this parenthood thing a try, one of the adjacent questions becomes “how many kids?”

Two. An only child would be tough, and three was too many.

But Phineas's arrival and early days were enough to make me reconsider my previous opinion on only children.

Long story short, I had preeclampsia and wound up in the hospital at 34 weeks. I had to be induced at 35 weeks because the high-risk OB said I could die otherwise. (I promise I’m not being dramatic - he said this when I had friends and family in the room.) I was induced, had a failed epidural, but Phineas arrived safely. He was taken to the NICU because he was early - one more week and he wouldn’t have had to go, hence my resistance. I was put on magnesium, so I didn’t even meet him until more than a day later. Phineas spent four weeks in the NICU, during which time I was constantly shamed by the lactation nurses because Phineas and I couldn’t breastfeed. After he came home, Phineas barfed up nearly everything he ate for the first year of his life because of his acid reflux from an underdeveloped esophagus. Meanwhile, I had a nasty case of postpartum depression that has never gone away. And COVID lockdown started just days after he was born, so we couldn’t see anyone for months.

Yes, that’s the short version.

So you can see why I wasn’t too anxious to do any of that again.

In our years of Phineas, James and I have struggled greatly to maintain our identity as a couple. We have gone on three road trips without Phineas and one or two dates, but that’s it. We don’t talk at night because Phineas takes so freaking long to go to bed the other parent  is usually asleep before the bedtime parent is freed. We don’t talk on the weekends because it’s all Phineas all the time. We get babysitters all the time, but it’s always because we’re both working late. We can’t communicate to save our lives. I recently told James I loved him, but I didn’t know anything about him anymore. That’s a shit feeling.

All that said, a second child seemed like a reach. We’ve skirted around the issue for some time, but as I approached 35, the issue had become more important to resolve. We half-heartedly decided I would quit birth control late summer 2022. 

And then -

I got pregnant.

While on birth control.

During a week I should not have been ovulating.

Basically as close as you can get to immaculate conception.

I was devastated. I alternated between sobbing and having panic attacks. I wanted to curl up and die.

You may be wondering what the big deal is. If I was planning to get pregnant in September, who really cares if I got pregnant in March instead?

There’s the little stuff, like our big camping trip to the Utah National Parks would have to be postponed. My maternity clothes were the wrong season. I didn't have enough sick leave. The due date was December, so we would be stuck inside during the months my depression is at its worst. James would also need to go immediately back to school, contrary to him having a summer off with baby Phineas.

But this is why I was crushed: I didn’t make this choice. Even after doing everything right, the path was chosen for me.

My downfall ended up being a medication that had helped me greatly in the past year. After having COVID and suffering from an onslaught of migraines following, I visited a neurologist and was prescribed a preventative medication for those migraines.

What I didn’t know was this medication made birth control pills less effective.

Being so gutted by this pregnancy will automatically earn me the title of “bad mom” if I didn’t have it already. As women especially, our lives are filled with “shoulds” and “supposed tos,” none more so than in motherhood. I should be excited. I should be grateful. 

This feeling hit especially hard because of all the people I know who struggle with infertility. They would be over the moon for this, but here I was hating it. The guilt. I also felt enraged because it’s so unfair. Why do I have this bizarre fertility superpower while others are left without?

In spite of these feelings, I did not consider having an abortion. We had wanted a second child and could ultimately handle it, despite the less-than-ideal timing. I steeled myself for a sober summer, ordered a few new pairs of maternity pants, and told a select handful of people.

At nine weeks, I was scheduled to go in for my first ultrasound. As this was my second pregnancy, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. The ultrasound tech would take a bunch of images, print out a few pictures for us, and we'd talk to my OB and get an estimated due date and be on our merry way.

It didn't go like this, though.

The first few minutes of the ultrasound were normal. "There's baby!" said the tech, as I breathed a sigh of relief there was only one in there. (I was already feeling giant, so I had a slight fear it was twins.) When I had my initial ultrasound with Phineas, I remember the tech being chatty and narrating everything that was going on. This time, though, she was pretty quiet. She took a few pictures and ended the ultrasound what seemed like very prematurely. She then said she couldn't find a heartbeat.

We were instructed to stay in the ultrasound room, and a nurse would come and get us to take us to the exam room. James and I sat in the ultrasound room for what felt like forever until we were led through the back of the clinic (never entering the waiting room) straight back into an exam room. That was also very different from when we had Phineas, where we went from the ultrasound room back to the waiting room until they were ready for us in the exam room. 

In the exam room, we met with a PA (as my OB was out of the office that day), who was so kind and told us there was fetal swelling and fluid in the lungs. She assured us there was nothing I could have done to change this outcome; that it was something genetic that went wrong. 

To my surprise, I cried and cried. The moment I had seen that little body on the ultrasound, it was real to me. We were having a baby, and it was going to be ok. But then, within seconds, we weren't having a baby any more. And I wanted that baby more than anything.

We were given several options as to how to continue. I could wait for my body to miscarry naturally, I could take a pill to get the process started, or I could opt for surgical removal (a dilation and curettage, or D&C). I didn't think I could emotionally handle the waiting or the miscarrying at home (would it happen at work? or with Phineas around?), so I chose the D&C. My ultrasound was on Friday, and the clinic was able to schedule my procedure for Sunday.

My D&C was performed by my OB, which was incredibly comforting. She and her nurses were so kind, and I never felt anything but completely taken care of. I had never had surgery or general anesthesia before (besides having my wisdom teeth out 16 years ago, but that's hardly comparable), so I was nervous going in, but I really had nothing at all to worry about. We even bonded with our liberal nurse over my Ruth Bader Ginsburg earring and shared disdain for Kristi Noem. For such a sad reason to be there, the experience itself could not have been more positive. 

This experience makes me even more enraged with the GOP and the Supreme Court. If this had happened in June after they make their decision, I would not have been able to get a D&C or even a pill to speed up the process (as my doctor is in South Dakota). I would have to wait, not knowing when my body would actually miscarry. That waiting would be excruciating, compounded by the fact that it could happen at any time - at work, while driving, alone with Phineas… how horrible. This also opens me up to a higher risk of infection and a higher chance of not being able to have any more children at all. It is absolutely sickening to think of the restrictions that could be just around the corner. Having a miscarriage is traumatic enough, but taking away all of the options for aftercare is truly inhumane.

After I became a mother, I became even more pro-choice than ever before. Now that I'm not only a mother but a survivor of miscarriage, my eyes are opened even further. It is absolutely sickening that anyone should be able to dictate to me or any other woman how to handle her own health. I wanted this baby - but after I learned I had miscarried, I did not want to have to wait who knows how long for my body to expel it. That is emotional torture. The definition of abortion is "the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus." My pregnancy was terminated after the death of a fetus, which fits squarely into the definition of abortion. I had an abortion because I miscarried. Would you fault me because of that? Many would.

I fully believe it's a woman's choice what to do with her own body. Personally, aborting a living fetus is a choice I would likely not make. But that doesn't mean I would begrudge anyone else for making that choice. I know nothing about the lives of other women, nor does anyone else. No male - GOP or otherwise - knows what it's like to have a miscarriage and have to decide what to do next.

We're all humans here, all trying to do our best with the pain and the hands we've been dealt. Why can't we seem to understand that about each other?

the female experience.

Did anyone ever give you Mace unironically?

What did your parents tell you when you and your friends went out by yourselves for the first time?

You are walking alone at night - where are your keys?

There is a man standing next to his car on the side of the road, clearly needs help. You have time. What do you do? 

Answers:

Yes. I was 16.

"If someone tries to grab you, kick him right between his legs." 

In my hand spread out between my fingers like a weapon.

You do not stop. That's how women get killed.

If I were a man, my answers would be completely different.

New question: does the government control what you can and can't do with your body?

As a woman, my answer is yes.

The Supreme Court leaked a draft regarding Roe v Wade is terrifying to me and women everywhere. Forcing someone to give birth against their will is inhumane. As a person who has given birth, I can tell you it was the worst experience of my life. My doctors told me I could have died. It was a horrendous time for me, and I chose to get pregnant. I can't imagine how much more awful that would have been if I had not wanted to carry that pregnancy to term.

Even more inhumane is the fact those who want to overturn Roe often will not add exemptions for rape, incest, and events in which the mother's life is in danger. A rape victim who gets pregnant as a result not only suffers the trauma of the rape itself, but the trauma of carrying and birthing her rapist's child. If a woman's life is in danger because of a pregnancy, that woman receives a death sentence. Does that sound like pro-life to you?

As women, our very personhood is slipping away. We are nothing but brood mares to them. A pregnant woman has fewer rights than a corpse - to remove a corpse's organs for donation, there must be signed documentation to do so. Otherwise, they'll leave the organs even though tens of thousands of people die on transplant lists ever year. Yet - a pregnant woman does not get to decide whether or not to continue that pregnancy, even though the "baby" in question is an inviable clump of cells. Again: pro-life?  

The memes sprouting from this leaked draft are spot-on.

Sure, adoption is an option - a great option for some. But again, giving birth is traumatic. Pregnancy is traumatic. You sacrifice not only your body, but your emotional well-being - and for a "domestic supply of infants"? That is undue suffering for someone who never wanted to be pregnant. Plus, it takes time and money to be pregnant and give birth - things that not everyone has the luxury of. Some women can't miss work or don't have childcare to make it to doctor's appointments, and even more women have little to no paid time off from work to recover from childbirth. Many of those factors are reasons a woman might want an abortion in the first place. 

I am disgusted the anti-vaxxers have repurposed the pro-choice phrase "my body, my choice" to bitch about wearing masks and getting a vaccine that will save lives. It's not even close to the same thing as delivering a baby. Wearing a mask is painless, and getting a shot takes a second or two. Both of these measures are meant to protect you and those around you: people who are already ALIVE, not an embryo. The anti-choice movement is meant to "protect" an organism the size of a raspberry who thinks nothing and feels nothing and is not a person yet. 

As it stands now, it's hard enough to obtain a safe and legal abortion. Many states have restrictive policies in place, like 72-hour waiting periods. In South Dakota, there is only one abortion provider in the entire state - and that abortion provider flies in from Minnesota once a month with a full security detail. 

I firmly believe if men could get pregnant, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

Speaking of men, it's always old white men clamoring to control women's bodies. People who will not ever experience the consequences. Don't these men have wives, daughters, granddaughters? What if their daughter was not able to abort a life-threatening pregnancy and dies as a result? Or what if she got pregnant at 15? Would they see things differently then?

I've already discussed how these people who claim to be "pro-life" are simply pro-birth. Once that baby is born, they don't want to have anything to do with it. They want to cut social and educational programs, they don't want affordable health care. So not only will women be forced to have babies they don't want, they'll also be on the hook for the $20k (or more) it takes to have said baby in a hospital. My son Phineas was born early and spent a month in the NICU, so his bill rang in at over $110k. 

The decision to have an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. Those are the only two people who should be involved. Period. 

The doctors themselves can be a hurdle as well. Did you know many physicians won't grant a woman a tubal litigation unless she is over 30 and has had at least one child? "Just in case." Even if this woman will never change her mind about childbearing, this procedure is not always an option. Think about it: the doctor won't do what a woman wants just in case a man wants to use her for childbearing someday. That's wild.

This country was built on the premise of freedom of religion. What is there about "freedom" that is so hard to understand? The anti-choice movement always, ALWAYS brings God into the argument against abortion. "Babies are God's miracles" and so on. But freedom of religion means you don't get to force me to practice your religion, and I don't get to force you to practice mine. But that's exactly what's happening.

So that's what it's like to be a woman right now. You fear for your life, and you fear for your rights. But we’re not going to take it.

Come this November, let's vote these bastards out.

excuses.

 I have been writing this blog for more than ten years now, and in those years, I’ve never failed to post at least once a month. 

But I keep coming perilously close.

It’s not that I’ve run out things to say or stories to tell - far from it. I am short on the time in which to do it.

Between my full time job (which I love dearly) and parenting a two year old, nearly every minute of my life is claimed.

I am also coming off of nearly a month straight of travel. I was in California for the last week of March, in Colorado over the Easter weekend, and just returned from a multi-day conference in Arizona.

Needless to say, I am behind on everything else.

So please don’t ever think I am done with this blog if and when I do miss a month. Writing is a joy to me, and it’s a form of therapy I need dearly. 

I just run out of time.

hot chicken: a comedy.

 James and I love to travel. 

We also love to eat.

COVID and having a child both put a serious hitch in our traveling schedule, but we're doing our best.

When we travel someplace new, one of the things we like to do is try that area's signature dish. For example, when you go to New Orleans, you have to have beignets and po boys. In Canada, you have poutine. In Louisville, you have a hot brown. (That's really what it's called.)

In Nashville, you have hot chicken.

We went to Nashville in July 2021. It was part of our road trip to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. It turned out Nashville was a short drive from our campsite, so we decided to make a day trip out of it. It was DEATHLY hot - like set one foot out of the car and you start sweating hot - but we were bound and determined to eat this hot chicken we'd read so much about.

According to the internet, there were plenty of places to get hot chicken. The one that popped up first was a place called Hattie B's, but it looked like a chain (a local chain, but still) and some of the reviews said it was overrated. The second place that emerged victorious was a place called Bolton's. 

The chicken with flames coming out its ass should have been a hint.

 

We made our way to Bolton's. It was nothing at all to look at - just a squat little concrete building with some broken doors. In our experience, the worse the exterior looks, the better the food. We entered the empty restaurant. Dine-in service was still restricted, but one could order inside for a meal cooked in the adjacent food truck and dine at the outdoor picnic tables. The first thing we saw was the chart. 

From a previous experience with Thai food, we knew to stay the hell away from anything resembling spicy. I ordered light mild chicken on a stick, while James ordered mild chicken wings. We gathered our order number and headed outside to wait.

And wait.

And WAIT.

We waited for - no joke - an hour and a half for our chicken. 

While we waited, we talked to a group of four who had arrived after us. They had never had Bolton's before either, but they were much more confident than we were. They were from Louisiana, and they'd ordered a range from mild to hot. "We carry hot sauce in our bags," they bragged.

At long last, our chicken arrived - and it looked AMAZING. It came with coleslaw, ranch dressing, and white bread, and it appeared to be juicy and tender. As we bit into our chicken, it was indeed the juiciest and most tender chicken I'd ever had.

 

And then our lips burned off.

Mind you, I had ordered light mild. There shouldn't have been anything threatening about that, right?! I put the coleslaw right on my lips to try and quell the burning sensation, and I soaked each bite of chicken in ranch in hopes of eating it without the searing pain. 

No such luck.

As bad as I had it, James was worse off.

He was drenched in sweat and basically weeping. 

But we kept eating.

The flavor was incredible. It was one of those rare super-spicy dishes where you can taste the flavors through the intense spice, and the flavor is so wonderful you withstand the suffering.

Meanwhile, the Louisianans were watching us poor Midwesterners and our clear intolerance for southern heat. They just shook their heads and put on their "just watch this" faces. They all took their first bites...

...and suffered the exact same fate as us.

Not so cocky now, are we?

The Louisianans were quick to take back everything they said about us being wimps and said this hot chicken was indeed a force to be reckoned with. The "mild" chicken was in no way mild. One member of their party ordered the "hot" spice level (I felt a full body shiver just writing that) and managed to get some dry rub IN HIS EYE. I thought that would be a trip to the ER for sure, but he eventually came out of the bathroom - completely soaked, of course.

Neither James nor I could complete our meals. The pain was eventually too great. We had to beat it from Bolton's to the nearest ice cream parlor to truly heal ourselves, as dairy is the only true antidote to spice. 

And yet - I can't stop thinking about that chicken.

I don't know if I'll ever find myself in Nashville again, but I would love to go for round 2 with hot chicken.

No spice this time.

a few things I wish I could say to my grandma.

Last week, I hosted an Adult Show and Tell at the brewery. For my item, I brought a first edition copy of The Land of Oz that my grandma Lorraine, an elementary school teacher, had in her classroom for years. Every classroom book is inscribed with "L Johnson." Many of these books made their way to me, making up a good portion of my own children's book collection. Grandma wanted me to be a teacher (she wanted EVERYONE to be a teacher), but I became a librarian - in no small part because of her.

Ever since saying those same words to the Adult Show and Tell group last week, I've been thinking about my grandma a lot. My grandma Lorraine passed away when she was just a few months shy of 99 years old. She and I were close - I think because we were similar in a lot of ways. We both loved reading, history, and travel. I wore her wedding dress (which was also my mom's wedding dress) when I married James. 

She was a strong, intelligent, and independent woman, and that's exactly what I wanted to be.

Grandma could be critical, and she could be pessimistic. Her sharp tongue could hurt those she was closest to, though I don’t recall it being aimed at me. If your opinion wasn’t her opinion, you were wrong. Oh, and she LOVED Sean Hannity. She was complicated - she was both who I wanted to be and who I didn’t want to be. As they say, we contain multitudes.

Grandma Lorraine has been gone four years, and in those last four years, I have thought of so many things I'd like to say to her. Questions I'd like to ask her. She lived in Brookings for my entire life, and I'll still find myself absentmindedly driving towards her townhome or her assisted living facility when I'm in town, planning to pay her a visit. 

When I would go visit her, we could talk for hours. We talked about a lot of things, from whatever was going on in my life at the time to stories of her childhood. Since it’s been more than five years since we’ve talked, I have quite a few things I would say to Grandma if I could.

Grandma - 

I'm sorry we made you go to McDonald's so many times when we were little. You and Grandpa humored us every time without a single complaint. I'm not sure if I'd be that gracious, but I've heard from my parents that you will do things for your grandchildren you’d never do for your own children. I'm still sorry, though, because McDonald's is terrible. 

Same goes for the mall. I made you look at SO many feather pens circa 1996-1997. You were so patient.

I know all about your childhood in Irene. That was your favorite thing to talk about. But I want to know more about the rest of your life.

I wish I would have asked you more about your time as a WAVE during World War II. That was a badass thing to do. I know you wouldn't approve of me using the word "badass," but it was.

I want to know more about the man you were engaged to before you met grandpa Harvey. I asked you once and you brushed me off, but I wish I wouldn’t have dropped it. You were young once, too, and I want to know about it.

I am obviously glad you ended up with grandpa Harvey. He had a stroke and lost his ability to speak when I was six years old, so my memories of him before his stroke are quite limited. I want to know everything about him.

You sent me to Norwegian Camp when I was 10. Norwegian Camp sucked SO much, but I'm actually glad you made me go. It's a kick-ass party story. 

I wonder what you'd think about the AncestryDNA testing that we've all done in the years since you've been gone - that I'm not nearly as Norwegian as you thought (just more Danish and Swedish), that Mom's not German at all. I think you'd say the tests were wrong and move on. So I guess I don't wonder what you'd think.

I don't know what your favorite book is. I wish I did. If I had to guess, I would say Little House in the Big Woods. But I wish I didn’t have to guess.

Every time I go by a Perkins, I think of all the the dozens of appetizer platters we shared over the years. I haven’t been to a Perkins since you passed away, and I don’t know if I will go back. That was our place.

You would have loved hearing about my trip to Germany, Denmark, and Iceland - though you would have been crabby at me for not making it to Norway. It's at the top of my list, I promise! 

Things from your life fill my home. Norwegian wall hangings, pewter, your furniture, you name it. I wear a piece of your jewelry most days. Pieces of you are here with me always.

You were the first person I can remember taking me to a public library. I will never be able to thank you enough for that. 

I was working at a library when you passed away, but I don't know if I had told you it was my life's work. It is. I want to tell you I'm a library director now and I have my masters degree. I want to tell you I love going to work every day, and I want to tell you about all the amazing things I've gotten to do at the Rock County Community Library. I think you'd be proud of me. 

Most importantly of all, I want to thank you for raising my mom. She is an amazing lady and one of my favorite people. I don't know what I would do without her. 

Thank you for never once pressuring me to become a mother. You knew me for the first 30-odd years of my life, so it’s safe to say you knew the maternal instincts were lacking. I’d been married for four years by the time you passed away, but you never ever bugged me about having a baby like so many (practical strangers) of your generation did. Thank you.

On a similar note, I wish you could have met Phineas. He was born the day before your birthday. I was really hoping the two of you could have shared a birthday, but the doctors had other plans. In any case, I think you'd really like him. 

I don't believe in heaven, but you did. That was a comfort to you when those close to you passed away. Yours was the first funeral I attended after which I had arrived at the conclusion heaven didn't exist and the goodbye I was saying to you really was it. I sobbed like my heart had been torn from my body. I felt like it had been.

So while I don't believe I will see you again, I do think we got a lot out of our time together. There's always more to say, though. What really matters is that I knew how much you loved me, and I hope you know how much I loved you. I think you did.

a word about oldies music.

Ok, we have to take a quick minute to talk about oldies music.

When I was a preteen in the late 90s, I broke free of my parents' country music ways and started listening to oldies radio. This is where I discovered such beauties as the Beatles, the Hollies, and Simon & Garfunkel (who can still stop my heart). The oldies stations led me to the classic rock stations, where I found David Bowie, the Clash, and Prince. When I got my first car in the early 2000s (my grandma's 1987 Buick Park Avenue), I happily programmed a mix of oldies and classic rock stations into the radio buttons, and that is basically all I listened to from the ages of 11 until I left for college at 18. 

This is me at 15, having just attended a Simon & Garfunkel concert and thrilled out of my mind.

All was right with the world.

Back then, there was a clear definition between the oldies stations and the classic rock stations. Oldies stations were playing music from the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. The mid- to late 70s and to the late 80s belonged to the classic rock stations. The world made sense.

The other day, I was talking to my brother - a fellow millennial. He told me he was listening to an oldies station and heard 90s music. On the OLDIES station.

WHOA WHOA WHOA.

90s music can't be OLDIES. 90s music is only 30ish years old!

Oh, but do you know what else was 30ish years old when I started listening to it?

70s music.

Ohhhhh boy.

I've been having an awful lot of "gee whiz, that makes me feel old" moments lately, but realizing that songs from my high school days are on the oldies station really makes me feel like death may be imminent.

Here's my proposal:

The Spice Girls and Buddy Holly clearly are not the same genre, so they really should keep their separate radio stations. How about we stick with oldies radio as it was when I was a kid? Chuck Berry, the Supremes, the Beach Boys. Classic rock is AC/DC, Poison, Journey. We'll get some other radio station for the music that comes after: U2, Weezer, Green Day. It used to be called "alternative," but now that it's old, what do we call it? Sad old millennial rock?

Or do I just stop nip my existential crisis in the bud and never listen to the radio again?

Phineas’s phirst curse word.

Phineas will be two years old on March 5. He has picked up a great many words and phrases in his 21+ months of life thus far, including (but not limited to): uh-oh (his first word), bubbles, eww, party, woof, berry, sock, fixed it, uncle, kitty, and so on.

And as of yesterday, shit.

Which he learned from me, but after you hear this story, you can tell me what you would have done differently. 

James was out on a Sunday run, and I was home with Phineas. Phineas is fairly good at entertaining himself, so I went to take a shower. I left the door open so Phineas could come in and out of the bathroom as he pleased - while he does entertain himself, he does like to have access to the on-duty parent. 

Typically, Phineas really enjoys hanging out in my bathroom while I shower. I keep my lipsticks in mason jars in a teal rolling cart near the sink due to a lack of built-in storage, and Phineas finds great joy in taking these lipsticks out and throwing them on the ground. 

Lately, Phineas has also enjoyed gently taking the empty mason jar out of the cart and carrying it around with both hands. He had been so cautious and thoughtful; it had never been a concern.

Until yesterday. 

Phineas had emptied the lipsticks as usual and set the mason jar on the edge of the tub. That was new. I took it off the edge and set it on the ground so it didn't accidentally get knocked off and shatter. And then - Phineas took the jar and threw it at my feet.

Of course, the jar smashed into a zillion pieces upon impact. Instinctively, I yelled "SHIT!" 

Phineas then gleefully repeated "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

(Now, I do not believe Phineas had malicious intent, even though I fully intent to joke about him trying to kill me before he was two for the rest of my life. Phineas tosses all sorts of things he finds interesting in the bathtub, like my hairbrush, a retro pitcher, various plastic drinking cups, and non-bath toys. And now, glass.) 

I hopped out of the tub right away and quickly put in my contacts (being blind without them) to assess the damage. I immediately saw I was standing in a pool of my own blood. I had tiny lacerations all over both of my feet, but the top of my right foot had a deep cut in which a piece of glass remained. 

Meanwhile, James was still gone. I called and texted him to no avail. I dug the glass out of my foot, but I bled through eight regular Band-Aids and needed reinforcements. Plus, Phineas was running around somewhere yelling "shit" while I was stuck in the bathroom creating a crime scene.

(Phineas did come back a few times and rub my back while I was digging for more Band-Aids. Pretty sweet, I guess.)

When James finally did get my message, he brought back a bunch of giant bandages and got me patched up. I got to relay the story of how I taught our child to curse, and James had a hard time not busting a gut when he heard Phineas say "shit" to his face. 

I am obviously under no illusion I am mom of the year, but I may be willing to say this particular lesson in cursing was unavoidable. What would you have said if a toddler threw a glass jar at your bare feet? I'll wait.