It's never good to poison your children

Even if it is not intentional.

As you know, I travel a great deal on business. Last weekend, I got home and on Sunday Theresa had Mattea out at a birthday party. Mattea and the boys were scheduled to go to another party in the afternoon. The boys really needed a nap, but they needed lunch first.

Going into the fridge, I saw a bag of noodles. (We generally use ziploc bags for cooked pasta noodles. They take up little space in the crowded fridge, and it's easy to see what's in it.) They were dark, spiral noodles, so I took them for rice noodles, warmed them up, and both of the boys had a bowl for lunch. (You already see where I'm going with this, don't you?)

Grayson got up from his nap, complaining that he didn't feel good, and felt like he had to throw up. He didn't, but five minutes later threw up on the floor when he didn't quite make it to the commode. Five more minutes pass, and he throws up again.

Yep... whole wheat noodles. Not only gluten - but the extra strength stuff. When I poison my kids, I don't mess around! Grayson has always been the most sensitive of all of the kids to gluten, and his body reacted the way anyone's would to the ingestion of poison - it threw it back out. Noah just felt bad for awhile.

We generally label the bags "GF" for gluten free or "wheat" for T & E pasta. Somehow this one didn't get labeled, and as I didn't even know that T had whole wheat pasta, I erred in preparing it for my children.

Yet another in parenting lessons for parents that travel...

The other side, the other side, the other side of me

This line from a Hannah Montana song (yes, we watch Hannah Montana in the Hernandez household. Almost as much for the boys as for Mattea) applies to my "Moth to a flame" post a couple of posts back.

Not many people see "the other side" of me. I generally keep it well hidden, buried beneath a facade of calm, laid-back, mild-mannered, generally upbeat Ernie. Once upon a time, no one ever saw that side of me. But, over time, I came to realize that everyone has "the other side".

We all release "the other side" in different ways. Some verbally. Some physically. Some in diaries never meant to be seen. I am very fortunate to have an understanding wife that I can talk to and be with and share with and who is as non-judgemental as anyone I have ever known. It is Theresa that I get to unburden myself with when things seem to get too crazy.

But the week before last, when I was 500 miles away and my family was physically displaced and our world was in turmoil, one evening I just had to vent beyond what was capable through a cell phone.

Words have always been important to me. Reading was the one thing that I could do as a child that kept me absorbed, and I think transported me to different worlds. I don't know that I ever really fantasized about living in Sherwood Forest, or sailing the seas with Sinbad, but I loved reading the stories so much that I read them over and over again. So I guess it was natural for the other side of me to come out in words. Words that I would not feel comfortable saying to anyone in person, but words that I knew I could pour out for others to read, and unburden myself to an anonymous world. Words that could help me get through that moment. Thanks for reading my words.