Yesterday we went to this thing where they put thirty little kids in a room and let them run wild under the pretense of an educational activity. All of the kids got to decorate a little paper cutout of a bear with sponge paint, and furry pompoms, and string, and googly eyes. All of the other kids ended up with a fairly normal-looking bear, not because two-year-olds really know how to do this but because their moms guided the task more carefully than I did. But after a couple of minutes of me showing him how to glue fur and a mouth in the rights spots, I got a grip. I shut up and let him do whatever he wanted with his own dang bear. Plus I have a weird sense of humor and I was totally curious what he would do.

As soon I stopped trying to show him how we make our bear, he was able to show me the true beating heart of his creative vision: Googly eyes.

Within thirtry seconds that little bear had fifteen eyes glued to its face, and several on his body. He pointed to the one at the bottom of the bear’s tummy and announced proudly, “He has a weiner.” Then, just to make sure I understood, he said it again two more time. He has a WEINER. Mine has a WEINER.

This was maybe the third time he had spoken since we started going to this little program; I don’t think anyone realized he knew how to talk. It was a beautiful moment. When we got home, we pulled the bear out of my bag and most of the eyes had fallen off. “Awww,” he sounded so disappointed, “His weiner fell off. Now he can’t pee anymore.”

So he’s been playing with two of the rogue googly eyes all morning. Just now he dropped them and they rolled way, way under my bed. Can you hear the screams from your house?

MY EYES!!! OH NO MAMA! MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bet the neighbors think he just saw me naked.

Earlier he was walking around with two huge shopping bags, one on each shoulder. He cheerfully announced, “I’m have big purses. I’m carrying purses. I’m a PERSON.” He said it over and over and laughed like a maniac while doing big loops around the living room.

Get it… purse? Person? Purson. Dude, that’s a terrible joke!

My kid actually just said the words "Daddy, pwease wake up and pay attention to me."

We are a little much sometimes, aren't we Nicolaus?

Lucky thing Nicolaus has no friends other than Jayce who is too little – no, wait, not little – too YOUNG to comment on his appearance.

First he has a lingering runny nose, and even though I wipe it every 15 seconds he has still managed to coat himself in a very thin layer of a sticky substance that we'll pretend isn't snot. He's spent the last hour rolling around on the floor trying to convince Mouse to lay down in the bed he made, so now there is dust and floor grime and tiny dog hairs and dog food crumbs and stuff glued to him.

Which is bad.

But worse than the face is the hair. I've always cut his hair myself without much of a probelm, but this time he was overly aware of how DANGEROUS scissors are, having been told many times every day that he can't cut because scissors are dangerous and will hurt you and make you cry so don't ever ever touch them. Which is a perfect thing to tell a kid if you don't plan on sitting him down and cutting his hair any time soon with "danjris sharp hurt scissors" as he called them. Every time I snipped he told me that it hurt, and when I got to the part over his ears he started to panic: "What that NOISE is Mama??"

In the end, the back looked fine, the front looked ridiculous, and the sides… well, hmmm. One side looked perfect. I like his hair to be a teeny bit long on the sides. A cut that doesn't look like a haircut, you know? I want the look that says "I don't do anything to make him look this way, he's just naturally this cute." But I accidentally cut the other side too short. It was so funny – he could look back and forth and switch his look, like those little cracker jacks holgram cards. Cute! Stupid! Cute! Stupid! Cute!

The only solution was to cut the cute side to match the dorky side. Only by this time he had had enough of the pointy scary dangerous scissors, and he started to cry. I hurried up and finished as fast as I could, leaving him looking like a victim of some horrible new suburbanite teenage haircut fad.

It will grow. The face, I'm starting to think, might always be dirty and at least partially covered in snot, but the hair will grow.

Mouse suspected something was up when I gave him a bath. He stood in the tub and shook like I was preparing to slaughter him. Which I honestly had thought about doing but then I thought no, Kevin specifically said take him to the vet, so that’s what I’ll do instead. When I pulled out his crate, he started pacing and whining. I put him on a little leash. [Ha ha I edited out some very interesting stuff and now you can't read it! --ed.]

So I gathered up Mouse, a leash, a little blanket, and his travel crate in addition to the usual gathering of the snacks and the wallet and the keys and the spare pair of Bob the Builder underwear just in case I wet my pants, and of course the kid. Nicolaus has decided that Mouse is HIS dog, so he insisted on holding the leash as we walked to the car, which I thought was cute and which Mouse seemed to find… well not reassuring at all.

Next came the Horrible Car Ride of DEATH. The whole front end of the car shook with Mouse’s trembling. He silently whimpered the entire 3-mile drive. Finally we made it to the new vet’s office. The lobby is huge, and Mouse clung to my leg. When they asked me to put him on the scale he looked right at them and cried, “Just get it over with! Kill me now!”

But they ignored his plea and replied cheerfully “17.8 pounds.” He’s supposed to weigh right at 18 so I guess he isn’t lying when he says we grossly underfeed him. The vet tech came and got him, took him back to a little room where they drew blood and clipped his nails and tried to take a picture of him for his file. A little while later, the guy brought him back and said, “Um, we can’t get him to hold still to take a clear picture. Can you help us take a picture of him?” Hahahaa fools! Yes. I told him to sit and stay, and they took 1 gud peecture of my poor, quivering mouse of a dog.

Finally we got to see the real vet. She was awesome, even though she confused me by walking in and waving down at Mouse and Nicolaus and saying “Hi there, baby Nick!”

How the – how the hell do you know my kid’s name?

“Awwww I used to have a full-sized greyhound just that color named Nick. He looks just like a baby Nick.”

That should have clued me in but she managed to confuse me at least two more times because she refers to dogs as – seriously – as children. As in “Well yes, that’s true but with a child his age you really need to…”

What? How do you know how old my kid is? Oh you mean the DOG. But other than maybe belonging in a mental institution for not knowing the difference between animals and people, this vet was awesome.

She thoroughly examined Mouse while he did his best to shrink into the floor and disappear. We talked about his seizures and how they’re getting much worse instead of better, and how he never ever ever seems to just chill out anymore. Not that he was ever a mellow creature, but it seems so much worse lately. Plus he looks so old for his age. Look at pictures of him from a few years ago compared to now and you’ll see what I mean. He’s turning white and losing teeth. :-(

Kevin and I have said all of this to vets before, and they usually nod and tell us to stick with what we’re doing for now. This chick did a lot more than that – she had them draw more blood for all kinds of tests to determine whether the seizure medication is even working, and also to find out if he has a thyroid problem that might be causing the premature greying and aggravating his epilepsy. She said that this breed is very prone to gum disease and that he needs to have his teeth cleaned under anaesthetic sometime… that’s why his teeth are falling out. Oh and while he’s under the anaesthetic she’d like to go ahead and remove that fatty tumor that he’s had under his skin for the last three years.

If you’re thinking of getting a purebred dog any time soon, I want you to re-read that last paragraph. Then go to the pound and get a medium-sized brown mutt. Look for the Benjiest looking dog you can find… that’s the dog you want.

Where I’m going with all of this is that Mouse had a terrible seizure last night, brought on by the traumatic events of the day. Poor guy. At one point he was about to come out of the seizure when a cat chose that moment to pounce into the bushes by our bedroom window and start meowing. That totally pushed him over the edge; he tried to get up and find the cat and when I made him get back on his blanket he threw up and went back into convulsions. Lovely.

The good news is that according to this vet, since my child is on phenobarb Mouse shouldn’t be having seizures at all. I started to tell her that actually I don’t give phenobarb to my child, in fact I don’t think it’s even legal to prescribe it for children, but she seemed so confident that we will be able to get the seizures under control just as soon as we find the right dosage of the right medication for my child that I didn’t correct her. Hell, if giving Nicolaus narcotics is the only way to cure Mouse’s seizures, then that’s what we’ll do.