The volcano references just keep flowing here. We are a hotbed of volcanic imagery, a virtual mudslide of comparisons with the occasional lava bomb of humor.
Of course, we don’t like real
lava bombs. They’re scary.
I never expected it, but all my newly gained knowledge of
our earth’s steamy interior has been a parenting windfall.
For example, Little A. has wrestled with allergies all
winter. His ears get stopped up and then he whines and whines and whines…and
whines. When I’m feeling charitable, I remind myself that he can’t hear his own
voice. He whines again. I tell myself
it’s really uncomfortable when your ears perpetually stuffed up. He whines some more. I count to ten and
suggest he should blow his nose.
“I don’t wa-ant to blow by dose!” he whines. That’s Stuffy-Whiney for “I don’t want to
blow my nose!”
I count to twenty. “But it will clear out your ears.”
“Ho-ow will it do THA-AT?” he whines.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7—Inspiration
wells up in the crater of my mind. “Hey, buddy. Your head is like a volcano.”
Stick with me here, he’s
quiet and looking at me. “You have lots of magma inside—that’s your mucous,
right?”
He’s still quiet.
“And then your nose is the main vent, right? That’s where we
want the magma—the mucous—to come out. We DON’T want it to come out the side
vents—those are your ears. So, if you blow your nose, all the stuff will come
out the main vent.”
And then he…smiled. He smiled! And he blew his nose. And
angels sang. And at bedtime, he asked for a volcano song.
A volcano song???
And, once again, Hephaestus—or someone—smiled on me. I sang
Jimmy Buffett’s “Volcano” and he was happy.
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