09 November 2008

Illness and Injury

The Marmot Girls have always been fascinated by illness and injury. Even before Madame 5-yr-old broke her arm last week, Madame 4 would wet sheets of paper and wrap them around various limbs as casts. Now that there's an actual broken bone in the family, though, the girls have gone into overdrive. This is just a selection of the toys that have been bound up with tape casts.

I dressed some of the more scandalously naked dolls, because, naturally, all of the skanky/fluffy Barbie outfits have disappeared and no toys ever wear clothes at the Marmot House. (I found some of my old Strawberry Shortcake dolls at my parents' house awhile back and they were all wearing dresses I had made them out of toilet paper and tape a million years ago.) I'm thinking the sheep's ribs are broken?


The marmots are all about broken bones at the moment, but they used to be really big on general illness. They had a doctor's kit when they were still toddlers and knew all the instruments by name, including the sphygmomanometer. And when Madame 4-yr-old was only 2, she refused to answer to any name other than Dr. DeSoto and would rush around the house calling out, "The doctor is coming!"

When I spent a summer in Russia during college, I lived with a babushka who was also fascinated with illness. She always expected me to be sick because I went out to the theater in dress shoes that didn't cover the backs of my heels (in July). She often urged me to borrow some of her wool socks to wear with my dresses so that I wouldn't catch my death. When I did catch a summer cold, I never ever admitted to it, because I knew she would try to heal me by sticking garlic up my nose. After three months, she finally told me that Americans must be tougher than Russians because there was really no way I could have stayed healthy that long with my terrible choice of dress shoes.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't know about the broken arm!-James

Maren said...

Those are some pretty determined little doctors there. Maybe they will have a future in medicine. I had to laugh about the Russia story. On my first trip to Russia I got the flu pretty bad, and my host family had me sniff some horribly smelling mystery stuff they cooked up in their kitchen. Still not sure what it was, but it smelled awful. So if anyone asks me if I inhaled... I'm not so sure how to answer. It was just "herbs" right?

Cynthia said...

In Romania, they are afraid of "curent", said koo-rent. It means, of course, current. Like, a breeze on the bus or a nice open window in the middle of August. It is responsible for everything from a sore throat to the flu to sudden, agonizing death. Also, if you eat ice cream, you'll probably get a sore throat.
So, if you are on the bus and your head is unfortunately positioned under some man's fragrant armpit and the bus is 4 times past full and its August and precisely 150 degrees and you open a window, the entire Romanian population of the bus, (everyone except you and maybe your mission companion) will yell in unison, "curent!!!!!" and swiftly and indignantly slam the window shut.

MBC said...

James--I blogged about it last week. It was very exciting.

Maren--I talked to someone who stayed with my family the year after we were there, and she told me horror stories about the remedies my babushka subjected her to.

Cynthia--Great story! The Russians have a lot of similar beliefs. My favorite is that sitting on the ground or on a hard surface will make girls infertile. I was scolded several times for sitting on steps outside of palaces and cathedrals and instructed to stand up immediately before I did permanent damage.

Ann-Marie said...

the sheep is my favorite!

Annie M. said...

Those marmots must be constant entertainment. So cute.

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