This morning I was rudely awakened at 4:00 a.m. by a terrible headache. I tried to get back to sleep but it just kept getting worse and worse. I crashed out on the futon in the living room, mewling helplessly to myself. When my daughter woke up, she came over to investigate.

“Dada?”
“Dada is sick. My head hurts.”
“Dada sick. Head… hurts.”

I could barely speak above a whisper and I certainly couldn’t get up. I was starving (no breakfast) but the headache was making me nauseated. I thought maybe I could eat a few saltines though. I couldn’t raise my voice loud enough to get the attention of my wife in the kitchen, so I tried to use the toddler as an intermediary. This was advanced conversational mojo; I’ve never asked her to relay a message for me. Sure, if she wants cheese and I’m busy I’ll say “go ask mommy” but this is different.

“Hey… go tell mommy that daddy wants crackers. Can you do that? Tell mommy that daddy wants crackers.”

She got a look on her face of furious concentration. Then she whipped around and ran into the kitchen. After a few moments she came running back triumphantly, fist held high in the air. She opened her hand and deposited a single goldfish cracker on the futon next to my head. I ate it; the cheese flavor was far too intense.

“Cracker… dada!”
“Oh yes, thank you for the fishy cracker. Thank you very much. But can you tell mommy that daddy wants crackers? Tell… mommy… daddy… wants… crackers.”

Again, the furious concentration. Again, the running off as fast as she could. This time she came back triumphantly with… two fistfuls of goldfish crackers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under general foofiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.