MOTHERHOOD REQUIRES SAFETY GOGGLES

Let me start at the beginning. Two weeks ago, one of my girly-girls was enthusiastically brushing my hair with a hair clip. Said hair clip spiraled out of control and ended up in my right eye. Excruciatingly painful? Yes. But this is not the first or worst eye injury I've ever had.

Back in 1997, I was at my third college. My roomie, Tanya, her younger brother, and I commuted to school every day, and we spent our time between classes hanging out at the campus bookstore where Tanya and I both worked. One morning in the beginning of the semester, I was pulling my syllabus out of my work folder to see how many papers I would be writing throughout the next three months. Anyway, I pulled out the syllabus and promptly stuck it right into my left eye. Fortunately, the school's athletic trainer was in the bookstore at the time. He took me back to his office, flushed my eye out, and patched me up until I could see a doctor. So, I spent the day with a patch on my eye. It only took about an hour for me to tire of explaining why I had a patch on my eye. So, I got a Post-it, wrote "papercut on eyeball" on the Post-it, and taped it to my eye patch. Various people would walk up to me, read my Post-it, and carry on with their lives.

The pain was pretty bad by the time we had finished classes for the day, so we headed straight to the emergency room after we left school. Where I got a shot in my rear end. And Tanya got asked out on a date. By the male nurse who gave me a shot in my rear end. They gave me a fresh eye patch and some Codeine, and sent me on my way.

Since I only had one functioning eye, Tanya drove to school the next day. Since I only had one functioning eye, I didn't bother reading the label on the Codeine that said it should be taken with food. Soon after taking my pain pill, I realized that I should've eaten something and hurriedly scarfed down a Twinkie. It was too late, though. My nausea began to increase steadily, as Tanya's brother sang loudly and off-key in the back seat of the car. For some reason, that made my nausea worse. By the time we reached the school parking lot, I yelled to Tanya's brother to stop singing. Then I opened the car door, threw up in the parking lot, and we continued on to find a parking space.

Since I only had one functioning eye, I also didn't read on the label that Codeine caused marked drowsiness. So, I spent the day asleep on the couch in the student body president's office.

To this day, when I rub my left eye, it squeaks. Loudly. This makes my husband nauseous. I think it's a pretty cool parlor trick, like my double-jointed elbows and clover tongue.

But, I digress. Today, I was putting shoes on Cakes so she could play outside with Bean. Cakes was excitedly grabbing at my head for balance while I wrestled her squirmy feet into the sandals. Then, I felt Cakes' thumb in my right eye. Yes, the same eye that was injured two weeks ago. This time, my mother took me to the emergency room. No shots in my rear end this time, and no one got asked out on a date. They did put a patch on my eye. I was going to take a picture of myself all patched up for the blog today, but I was walking like a drunken sailor at the pharmacy and still had vivid memories of vomiting in the parking lot at college, so I took the eye patch off. And called Tanya to reminisce.