Part 3: Chapter 5

Little Black Dots

Photo by Kartik Iyer on Unsplash

Tuesday, May 5, 2020: Black Spots
	Am laboring through another day of teaching my children. Their school has assigned them an art project. They must re-create one of four famous paintings using household materials. Their options are Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, and The Great Wave by Hokusai. Spend the greater part of yesterday afternoon gathering materials. Wonder if the results will be worth the effort.
	In no time at all, our outdoor schooling table is covered in paint, glue, glitter, googly eyes, dry pasta noodles, paper shreds, and cotton balls. Opal has decided to dip spaghetti in blue paint to make Starry Night. Theo began duplicating The Persistence of Memory, but his attempts morphed into sticking toothpicks into drying blobs of hot glue. It looks like a hedgehog now.
	While contemplating the futility of this project and worrying about Opal’s math deficiencies and Theo’s appalling spelling, glance over at Baby Johnny who hasn’t moved in a full minute, highly unusual for a twenty-two-month-old. His mouth is at work on his pacifier, but he is staring down at his chubby legs sticking out from his khaki shorts. Spy dozens of tiny black spots up and down his legs. It looks like ground-pepper flakes. Approach warily until I realize that those little black dots are fleas. Then, I shriek.