Now that is some title. You’ll have to admit. And I bet you’d like me to explain it right off the bat. Well, you’ll just have to wait a bit and stick with me. The title grew out of the events that unfolded and I think a proper retelling is in order.
Wesley and I were out in front of the house last Sunday taking turns drawing with chalk, looking at insects, playing with rocks, and the other kinds of things that 22 month old boys like to do with their dads. At some point Wesley decided he was done with chalk and instructed me to come over to the front door of the house and “sit!”. So I did. He proceeded to bring me rocks from around the base of the house and we oohed or aahed over them as appropriate. “Isn’t this one smooth.” “Boy! This one is sparkly.” “Look at that one. It has holes in it. It wasn’t long before Wesley was bringing me handfuls of rocks at a time and dumping them on my lap. But, even that got boring quickly and he was in search of better rocks. As they say the grass is always greener…
Seeing all the rocks in front of the kitchen window Wesley insisted we explore. He took the lead as we weaved our way between the bushes and the house. We were playing with some rocks, looking for insects, etc when I turned around and saw that Wesley was eating something. To be accurate, he was in the process of spitting that something out. I told him to spit more and to show me his mouth. This is something we do a lot as he has a habit of putting small rocks in his mouth and then crunching down on them. When the tongue came out I saw a small seed resembling the seeds of a chile, only tiny. I did a finger sweep and removed it. At this point I was looking around for what Wesley had put in his mouth and it became clear.
We have a small plant just in front of the kitchen window. I have no idea what it is, but it has little berries (for lack of a better word) that look like very small upside down chiles. They start out green and then turn bright red. Wesley had begun chewing on a red one, but hadn’t gotten too far. His mouth was now on fire. He was panting and doing his water sign so emphatically that I knew we had to go inside in a hurry.
Now being the kind of guy I am, I made an interesting choice. On the way in, I grabbed a berry for myself, squeezed it and touched it to my tongue. Yikes! HOT, HOT, HOT! Wesley and I proceeded to guzzle water, ice chunks and milk. I tried to get him to drink only milk, but he really wanted ice. After a few glasses of water I was feeling a little better, but still could feel the burn on my tongue. Wesley however was still unhappy.
I went to the freezer and pulled out a fudgsicle. Wesley ran to the hearth (one of only three places we eat in the house: kitchen, dining room table, being the other two). He and I shared the fudgsicle. The area around his face had begun to turn red from his spit and from the way he was rubbing his hand on his mouth. One fudgsicle down and still not a happy tongue. I pulled out a second. He ate this one without sharing and by the end was looking pretty good. His mouth still had a pink ring around it, but he seemed mostly back to normal.
He headed back into the kitchen to look at the plant. He pointed and said hot and then he flapped his arms doing his bird sign. I questioned and Amber confirmed that they were eaten by the birds. I haven’t got a clue what those little things are. We didn’t call poison control (I know some of you are wondering) because he didn’t swallow the berry, I could see it on the ground. I don’t think he got it have chewed once before spitting it out. But I can attest to their power. Later in the afternoon I went for a run. After about 2 miles I was really sweating and my wrists were burning. Really burning, itching, hot. It was uncomfortable enough that I was dumping my water over them. I think that either I touched them or Wesley did with some spicy hot bird berry juice and the combination of sweat and rubbing from the gps and jogging stroller strap set my wrists on fire.
So there you have it the double fudgsicle spicy hot bird berry cure.
