Remember the time...

I peed on the kids?

Hark!  Lend me your ears my fine and weathered friends, for I am to embark on a tale of epic pre-portions of love concurring the horrors of evil.  It is a tale spun out of the darkness of parenting with a hint of truth and warning for those to follow in the future.  The ultimate in sacrifice and the cost of the innocent to end an everlasting pain of the flesh...

It begins on a dark night...

Actually it was last Sunday... in the morning... at the beach.  I know most of you are going to hate me for starting a blog written in the beginning of January with the words, "It all happened at the beach..."  But trust me.  By the time you finish reading this you will be forever grateful for the changing of season and the forced seclusion and safety of your houses.  (I doubt anyone in Michigan is dealing with this crap.)

My husband and I are on the way to visit my sister who happens to live literally 5 minutes from the beach, walking.  (And that's only if you trip on the way.)  We are so excited to spend a fun filled day with the love of our lives, our aunty.  (I don't exist if she's around... whatever.)  We march up to the beach and being to camp out right beside the lifeguard stand, you know, for safety.

I point to the purple and red flag waving in the air and I tell my kids.
"Okay, kiddos.  We can't go in the water.  The red flag tells us that the surf is too rough and the purple flag means there is marine life close to the shore.  Like jellyfish, or sharks!"

"Sharks?!"

And with that they scamper off to the surf.  We haven't even dropped our stuff before my two oldest come running up the beach in desperation.  "What's going on?" I ask and after a few moments of ow! and muddled speech someone says something about a balloon and I knew exactly what had happened.

Welcome to Florida in the winter:

I'm just an innocent, beautiful ocean balloon.

Man 'o war are a basic staple for our southern shores and we are riddled with them especially in the winter time.  But anyone who has lived in florida for any amount of time knows not to touch these things.  I mean look at it!  It just screams "AHHHH!  Don't touch me!!  I will hurt you or eat you or expand to accommodate the size of your body and then ingest you through osmosis!"

Come here little girl... You taste good.

But alas, my children are brave beyond reason.

By now the stings are so bad that they are causing my oldest's arms to bubble.  Ugh!  I trek my screaming kids to the lifeguard stand.  He has watched the whole exchange and is already handing me the bottle of vinegar as I approach him.  Fat load of good it does, it just seems to be getting worse.  (ps: don't put vinegar on a man o' war sting)  The lifeguard suggests Benadryl cream. okay.  Did I mention we're on the beach?  Where the hell are we gonna get that?  We are only 5 minutes from the beach but more then 20 minutes from a drugstore.

My kids are screaming, my husband is starting to panic, my sister is panicking and all I can think is what a heartless mother I must look like because this kind of thing happens to me  on the daily.  "Constant Crisis" should be my motto.

I send my sister and her boyfriend to get the medicine at the closes CVS and my husband and I stalk back to her place with three kids, three bags, three bikes and a scooter.  Mercifully, the ice cream truck stops just as we're heading off the beach.  I figure, if they're in emergency room pain, they won't want ice cream.

With the appearance of the ice cream truck and his catchy jingle music, everyone stops crying long enough to tell me what kind of ice cream they want.  Whew! At least it's not a true emergency and I feel a little less stress with the prospect of ice cream raising everyones moods.

We get to my sisters place and everyone is covered in sand and ice cream and salt water and vinegar and tears that I don't have the heart to bring anyone inside just to destroy the place.  Did I mention it was raining?  Because it started raining about 3 minutes after getting stung by jellyfish.

So, now I have everyone sit outside huddled under the roofline.  We have 20 minutes before my sister comes back and the kids are still screaming.  I look at my husband and shrug asking:

"So... do you have to pee?"
He looks at me in horror.  What?  I heard that works and lets be honest, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've done to get my kids to stop crying.  (Forget the fact that these kids came out of my vagina!  Hello!  They've dealt with worse stuff then urine when it comes to my bodily fluids)

So I take a cup into the bathroom, pee out some battery acid since all I had to drink was coffee and start administrating the "medicine" with a paper towel.

In the time it takes for my daughter to tell me how bad the "medicine" smells the bubbling of her skin disappears... like magic.  I couldn't believe it!  I had just assumed it was an old wives tale passed down from one desperate mom to another but no!  the marks were gone.  Those crazy bitches were telling the truth!  The pain left almost instantly and in 5-7 minutes we had everyone doused in urine and eating ice cream like nothing had happened.

My sister comes back with the Benadryl and can't believe everyone is so calm.  She asked me what happened and I almost didn't tell her since it was her cup I peed in.

There you have it.  A tale woven in the depth of horror and brought forth to tell of the wisdom learned in such desperate times.  If your kid gets stung by a jellyfish or even a man o' war you have my permission to pee on them.  Not only is it effective but it's fun too!

Antenella