The Very Bad Cold and My Very Strange Son

Over the past week, I've battled what I'm convinced was one of the worst colds ever in the history of mankind.  I did not like it.  I didn't like the flaming red, scale-y rash spreading from my nose due to excessive wiping. I didn't like the sinus headache and ear ache that came with a stuffy nose.  I didn't like having bloodshot, burning eyes. And most of all, I didn't like being unable to taste food. I made a delectable cauliflower cream soup full of complex flavors, and I couldn't taste a single one of those flavors until it was a two-day-old leftover (incidentally, it was quite good even as a leftover.)

As a result of this cold and the fact that I've spent the past week hiding from the world, I have very little to write about, so instead I'm going to quickly relay a story that happened about a month ago.  BJ and I are in our church's bell choir, so through out December, we were going to practices for our Christmas performances.  During these practices, I would wear Lydia in her Baby K'tan wrap, and Shepherd would play with some toys I would bring him.  Near the end of one of these practices, Shepherd started getting bored with the toys I'd packed him.  He came to me and begged for me to hold him.  With out missing a beat on the song we were currently playing, I told him I couldn't hold him because I was wearing the baby, and then I said what all exasperated parents say when they don't know how to meet their toddler's needs: "Go tell your father."  Now BJ was on the opposite end of the next row, so Shepherd passed about six people on his journey to his father.  He arrived at BJ's side just as we were finishing, and I turned around to see the whole back row laughing.  Apparently, on his way to BJ, Shepherd pinched the butts of every bell choir member he passed.  Let me repeat: All six people's butts had been pinched by my son.  What possessed him to do such thing, I do not know.  But he did. 

When your toddler does something this embarrassing, it is only natural to cringe at what you imagine other people must be imagining.  If I were one of the pinch-ees, I would be thinking, "Wow, in the Gensic household they must pinch each other's butts.  It must be a game.  How very odd they are."  Let me just say, I did not teach Shepherd to pinch butts, nor did BJ that I know of (all though that is not outside of the realm of possibilities.)  All I can say is that toddlers are wierd little people, and my son is no exeception to that rule.