Note: this is NOT a picture of MY kid

Not long ago, I was a stoic and self-possessed person. Not unlike the Terminator, I was all cold and steely to the touch, not able to comprehend basic human emotions. Like, EMPATHY.

Damn hippies with their empathy.

YUCK.

And you know what? I LIKED being a Terminator. It was an easy way to live. I was easy, breezy, beautiful, TERMINATOR. All I had to worry about was myself, and making sure I gave Sallie Mae her pound of flesh tribute once a month (don’t play with Sallie Mae about her student loan money, she will send her goons to your house to take a kneecap as payment for every month she doesn’t get her money. TRUST ME).

But the simplicity of those days are OVER. Because now I’m married with children. I’ve got these people in my life now that I care about (*shudder*). I’ve got this husband guy running around, and he’s all attractive, and funny, and caring and dependable. And he sticks around despite the fact that I drive him mad with my neuroses. So I can’t help but to be IN LOVE with him. Jeez. And now there’s this other person running around my apartment, this toddler guy I gave birth to. And HE’S all adorable and shares my DNA, so I am programmed by mother-nature to care about his safety and well being. Yikes. And now, ever so slowly, the thick coating of ice that used to encase my heart has melted away and left a quivering, open wound of a heart in its place. And I. DON’T. LIKE IT.

So, when I was offered the chance to take some pics of Brandon being swarmed by diseased farm animals at a petting zoo, I was like YO, SIGN ME UP. Because I’m a SUCKER for that cutesy stuff now. Yeah, I said “diseased” farm animals, so before you whip out your trusty pitchfork, let me explain.

Hindsight is 20-20, as they say. I am a novice parent, and sometimes (maybe, most of the time) the obvious does not occur to me. Like the fact that farm animals are filthy, transient, scavengers whom have dookie perpetually pouring out of their exposed buttholes. And those shit encrusted buttholes are at exact eye-level with with a one-year-old. So, this begs the question: At any point, was Brandon overcome by the urge to plug a curious finger into a goat’s shitty butthole and then immediately touch his own face?

Probably.

Sadly, I can’t say for sure because I had to take my hawk-eye off of him for a few seconds now and then. Like when I was rudely side-swiped by an unaware llama who didn’t appreciate the notion of PERSONAL SPACE. The only thing I DO know for sure was the horrible aftermath of the petting zoo debacle, when my kid was sweltering with a 102+ fever ten hours later.

Damn farm animals.

I shook my fist at the sky and cursed our fate at 2am that night, because trying to nurse a sick toddler back to health TOTALLY SUCKS and is fraught with fear, bumbling incompetence, hallucinations (both audible and visual), and pickled with an extreme lack of sleep for both child and parent. It also lasts for DAYS. I rushed him to the doctor once his temperature peaked into the “he could have a seizure” danger-zone above 104 while chanting don’t die don’t die don’t die the whole way there.

Beautiful sleep after a dose of nearly vomit-inducing Tylenol. Note: my trapped arm.

After she gave him the once-over, the doctor assured me his fever had NOT been triggered by the now infamous petting zoo butthole cage match. You can stop blaming yourself, she said sympathetically. I was like YESSSS! Because up until then I had mentally logged this incident on my growing list of times he narrowly escaped death because of me. Turns out, it was just your run-of-the-mill virus that vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. He was fine less than 48-hours later.

Damn farm animals.

I still haven’t realized that he’s not the faberge egg I anticipated a baby to be. These kids bounce right back!