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    Charades

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    I've never played charades before. To get me to list and discuss the myriad reasons why this is the case, I'd need to be lying on a leather couch, talking to a guy whose name is suffixed with the letters PhD. Instead, I'll simply say that it just isn't my "thing". I understand the basics of the game. A person will stand in front of everyone else and start acting like a fool, flapping their arms, hopping on one foot, and pointing at their nose. This is all done in pantomime, because the "actor" is not allowed to speak. The audience then shouts out what they think the phrase is. The actor grows increasingly frustrated that the audience can't see that the answer is - OBVIOUSLY - Chuck Norris. Wash, rinse, repeat.

    There are certain signals that the actor can make to help the audience along. If he touches his nose and points at someone, that person correctly guessed the word that the actor was working on. Tugging on your ear means "sounds like". So, if he were to pull his ear and jump in the air, the audience would start shouting "dump", and "bump", and "hump". I only know this because I'm pretty sure I saw an episode of The Cosby Show, or Full House when I was younger where the family played charades.

    Here in the Gearhart household, we've been playing charades for the past three or four days. We made the mistake of having Tyler start the game as the actor. He's only 7 months old, so we didn't set high expectations for him. But he was horrible at it. Maybe we didn't explain the game to him well enough (or at all), but Sarah and I have been yelling out our guesses over and over again, and Tyler hasn't once touched his nose and pointed at us. Needless to say, we're still in the first round of the game.

    First, Tyler would grab and tug on his ear. "Sounds like", I thought. No problem. Then Tyler would yell and scream. Sarah and I thought of every rhyming word we could think of. Steam, team, cream, deem, slipstream. Nothing. Bell, cell, tell, oyster shell. Zilch. After a few days of guessing, we decided that either he sucks at charades, or we suck at parenting, so we took him to our family doctor. I had to work, so Sarah took him in.

    The diagnosis: Sounds like Bubble Smear Chinflection.

    Tyler is now taking Baby Motrin for pain (berry flavored), and amoxicillin for the infection.

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    Double ear infection. *sigh*

    To top it all off, we just (last week) took Delilah to the vet to get her ears flushed. She's had ear problems and allergies since the day we got her. We have to put medicine in her ears everyday and give her an antibiotic pill with her food.

    DOUBLE double ear infection. *double sigh*

    7 comments:

    Kuchenmeister said...

    We all have moments like that. With my son, it was teeth. Screaming, feverish, WHAT could be wrong??? OH! You need orajel? Got it! We're bad at baby-charades too :)

    Natalie said...

    yeah...i've been there and done that! poor little guy. hope he's feeling better!

    A Free Man said...

    Why have you become irrational?

    Sarah said...

    My poor babies!

    It really sucks that the symptoms for teething are EXACTLY the same as the symptoms for ear infections. How was I to know?

    Irrational Dad said...

    @Marie and @Natalie: First time parenting is a chore, eh?

    @AFM: Glad you noticed. I've found through some online searches that there are a lot of blogs titled "Who's Your Daddy?" I decided I wanted something a little more unique. Hope it works.

    @Sarah: BAD MOMMY!! ;)

    Cat said...

    I'm your AFM interviewer, so I'm trying to catch up on your life before I craft my excellent questions. This is the first post, and I'm laughing out loud so that is a good sign. I'll be back later with your questions.

    Erin & The Boys said...

    Hi Joe. I'm sorry to hear Tyler has a double ear infection. Just wanted to let you to know... Lee has seen great results with doing simple cervical adjustments on babies and children to prevent ear infections. Email or call if you have questions about it. Our kids have never had an ear infection and they get adjusted once month. This is not a plug for Lee's office... just wanted to help.

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