And She Shall Never Thirst Again

Happy late Pi Day. I hope you ate pie, you free-as-the-wind-gluten/sugar-eating free spirits of freedom. Can you tell this gluten-free/sugar-free thing is bringing me down, man? It is. But the good news is, I don’t feel a ton better off gluten, so bread may be coming back into my life. And pie. And things that taste good.

Sometimes I don’t post because I have nothing to say and sometimes I don’t post for a while because there’s too much to say and I can’t write it all so I get overwhelmed and watch Project Runway instead. It’s been one of those weeks.

I do have something that needs sharing though. Sharing, but with no visual aids. It’s about Drinking Things.

Wanda is my youngest. She is oh-so-three and she is fascinated by body parts, especially taboo body parts. Bums are raucously funny, for one. For another, she’s fascinated by all my friends who nurse their babies. Milk coming out of their bodies?!!?!?!?1!?! Genius!

Well, she’s never seen me nurse, and if all goes according to the plans that feel right to me and my brain and pelvic region, she never will. But the other day, we were taking a shower together and she looked up and her mouth fell open and she pointed up at me accusingly.

“YOU HAVE TWO DRINKING THINGS!” she yelled, shocked. She could not believe I had been holding out on her. All those times in the car when she asked for a drink and I said, “I don’t have anything to drink. We’ll get some water at home.” All of those times were lies, dangdable, dangdable lies.

She looked up at me skeptically.

“When did you get those Drinking Things?”

“When I grew up big like a mommy, I got them so I could feed my babies.”

“You didn’t let me drink your drinking things. Can I drink your drinking things?”

“Oh, you sure did, but you were too little to remember it. Towel please.”

She then looked down at her own chest, massaging it gently in circular motions, and hung her head. “My drinking things are not big. At all.” She looked like she was going to cry.

I assured her that they would grow someday, and that seemed to satisfy her. Until that night. And the next day. And the day after that. And every time we find her standing naked in front of a mirror inspecting them and lamenting. “My drinking things are still not growing big like a mommy. At all.”

She’s genuinely sad and I’m pretty sure it’s all about hydration. With her own set of Drinking Things, or jugs, as they are called in the vernacular, she could carry around milk wherever she went. It would be so awesome. It would be like me having a cheesecake machine growing out of my hip, only to find out that the dang thing was out of service and no one, absolutely no one, could fix it.

FRUSTRATION! SADNESS!

But she soldiers on. And one day. The Drinking Things will come. And hopefully, by that time, she will find more compelling and efficient ways to meet her liquid dietary needs. Because I’m not ready to break it to her that the jugs don’t come full of milk, chocolate or otherwise.