Here’s what a nerd I am. I’m not just a 21st century nerd; I’m a nerd stuck back in the second grade. In the second grade something life-altering happened to me: I read my first Nancy Drew book. Then I read all the rest. Then I read the newer ones (not as good) the files (a little predictable; plus suddenly people were getting killed, which never happened to 1930’s Nancy). Anyhow, I still love mysteries.
And so, when wrestling my squirmy baby into his onesie recently and upon noticing something startling (how ungrammatically correct is this sentence already??) — I immediately thought to myself, ‘there has been a mysterious disappearance of neck cheese here’ . Instead of something normal like, ‘huh, his neck gunk finally cleared up.’
My youngest child is one of those crazy fat squishy babies. His older brother was always long and lean, but this one has creases in impossible places. And in some of those places, he likes to hide stuff. Snacks for a rainy day? I don’t know. I’ve been doing battle with neck cheese for months now. Wiping it out, washing him off, putting ointments on his skin to keep moisture out and the stinkies at bay.
Total failure.
My yummy fat happy baby had the stinkiest neck on the block.
And now- the neck cheese is gone, filed away under ‘funny things about Baby You’, or ‘things we will tell your fiancee someday’. Just another reminder that this Baby is scrambling, racing toward Toddler. So, though you might think a normal person would be relieved at the sudden decrease in the daily quota of used washclothes, I’m just a little wistful.
So here I am. A nerd who labels the everyday (and frankly, gross) with mystery titles, because, underneath the motherly angst, joy, responsibilities, and laughter, deep down– I want to be racing around in my roadster, golden hair flying in the wind, with a suspicious character in black sedan close on my tail.
There was probably no neck cheese in Nancy’s life.
She really missed out!
