OMG (a.k.a. Tough kid, sissy mama)

When people ask me what's new, I usually say, "Nothing." And I'm usually thankful to say that. Boredom is often the opposite of chaos in my life, perhaps in other lives as well, and I'm happy to embrace boredom much of the time because I prefer it to the alternative.

We got the alternative Tuesday night.

It was a totally normal night. I was nagging the "boys" about bedtime, and finally managed to make my husband understand that the next morning our child would need to rise at the same old time, and that he needed adequate sleep in order to tackle the day with success, etc. My son ate a quick snack (pizza-flavored Goldfish crackers and water) and I herded him into my bedroom to get his clothes off and into the hamper so that PJs could be donned.

Apparently, after I left the room, the kid had an undeniable urge to run, naked but for socks, and see his father in the living room; when he didn't show up, I had to call out and remind him to stay on task and come in for pajamas and tooth-brushing. I was selecting the pajamas from a drawer when suddenly, I became aware that my child was running from the living room into his bedroom. I saw him approaching from the corner of my eye, not really registering the speed with which he came, and a second later there was a loud thump. I glanced up in time to see his feet literally flying out from under him, up in the air—and then saw him hit the floor, landing right on his back.

Now, there have been a few times when my son hit the wall—with his head, or his foot, or his back end when he was crawling around in a clownish manner. So, we'd seen similar situations before; panic did not immediately ensue. He lay there for a second, and my husband and I both scurried over from opposite directions to ascertain the damage. Marcus was still on the floor, and he seemed to have hit not only his face, but also the back of his head when he fell; our home is tiny, and the space in that little hallway outside bedrooms is quite unforgiving.

I was totally unprepared for what met me at close range: my son's forehead was gashed, straight up and down, and blood was spilling out in spurts. I thought I would be sick, and one look at his dad told me he was feeling the same. We sat him up a bit, I grabbed a washcloth and we held it on the forehead, and all the while Marcus was huddled there unclothed, red splashes landing on his bare legs, crying full tilt. Todd remembered to tilt his head back a little, to minimize bleeding, and when the washcloth did not stem the flood, we grabbed a dry hand towel to better soak up the mess.

A minute passed, I threw a blanket on my boy (can kids go into shock from a gash? no matter, it's winter and he's naked), and we worked up the nerve to take another look at the cut. This was the OMG moment, people: it was unspeakably horrific. It looked like a hockey injury. The giant slash running between my child's eyes could have come from a skate blade or a big, sharp stick; it could have been carved in with a knife. It was a perfectly straight line, because (we've since determined in hindsight and re-enactments) he hit it squarely, somehow, on the frame of his bedroom door.

Todd and I both stared at it, trying not to reveal in our faces just how awful it really was. In my head, I was screaming, "OH MY GOD that is so DEEP! I can't believe it! He needs stitches! Holy CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!" but on the outside, I was trying to remain calm and tell my son that everything would be okay. He kept saying, "It hurts," and I was thinking, no *!?# it hurts because I can practically see your SKULL in there!!! But I couldn't say that. So I murmured useless, soothing phrases, and Todd and I spoke with our eyes. Yes, we agreed, yes; we must go out on this snowy, slippery night, to the nearest hospital, right now.

We resigned ourselves to our fate, put some zip-up PJs on the wailing child, fashioned a headband made from destroyed T-shirt in order to secure the blood-soaking cloth, and got ourselves into the car, praying for safe travel, for quick treatment, for the best possible scenario. Thankfully, we made it out of our snow-covered driveway, and the roads were passable.

Let me take a moment to rave about Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue. The folks there were wonderful: quick, thorough, calming and friendly. We were the only ones in the ER, and they saw to us immediately, talking through what had happened, chatting with Marcus who had since stopped crying and was looking quite pitiful. One look at the depth of the cut and they knew it needed stitches; no skin glue for this one. To their credit, they were honest with my little guy, and told him (not all at once, but as needed) what they were going to do. There were three of them prepping him; a matronly type wrapped him in a sheet tightly, to immobilize his arms, but she talked with him as she worked, joked a little, made him as comfortable as possible. The assisting nurse, an affable fellow who was blind in one eye, was warm and friendly with all of us and put everyone at ease. The doctor who washed, gave numbing shots, and stitched was confident, very capable, and worked with speed.

Here's where I must confess that after they began to wash the cut, and I got a better look at just how horrible it was, I had to sit down and I missed most of the really gory stuff because I was fighting the simultaneous urges to throw up and fall down. I didn't see the stitching; I simply could not look. I saw the doctor's hands lifting, going down with the needle, pulling it up again, but I certainly wasn't counting; I couldn't watch for that long. (He got 5 stitches, according to his dad.)

But as much as a wimp as I turned out to be, my son was beyond stoic. The only crying he did was at home. When the doctor told him there would be stitching, and shots to numb the injury, his mouth turned down on the outsides—the telltale pre-cry face. Yet somehow, it never became full-blown. He set the mouth back to a normal line, he nodded or answered when asked a question, he allowed the nurse to hold his small, frightened face perfectly still while a man with a sharp object laced a nylon thread through his lacerated forehead. He never made a sound. Nothing.

The ER folks were impressed. I was speechless. What a tough guy. He was lying there, we were encouraging him and telling him it was almost done, and I was too sick to feel proud of him at that moment—but I knew, even as I fought the urge to hurl, that his behavior was pretty amazing.

Marcus bounced back just fine. When the procedure was finished, he stood with boots back on; since his face was still numb, he was in very good spirits. His dad and I? Both of us were sitting, ashen-faced, glad it was done but shocked it had transpired at all—and wondering which of us would be able to drive home. (Todd was; he thankfully did all the driving that night.) The amazing thing was the timetable from start to finish: On a treacherous winter night, my boy had run into a wall at approximately 8:45, and we pulled back into our driveway, stitched and bandaged, a couple of minutes after 10pm.

God is good. He put all the pieces in place, so that while my poor child had to go through that experience, it was as painless as possible. He didn't even miss kindergarten the next day (I'd been planning on keeping him home) because the weather turned very sour again, and the school district cancelled classes.

It's alarming to realize you are not nearly as tough as you would like to believe. Happily, my weakness was more than balanced by my offspring's strength. It would have understood if he'd cried, if he'd been a bit uncooperative, but it was as if he knew that his behavior would make or break the whole incident.

Thanks for listening, especially to my bragging about my boy; I try not to do that, especially here, but I feel it's more than merited on this occasion. And by the way: absolutely NO RUNNING in the house.

To quote Pulp Fiction, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go have a heart attack."

P.S. Stay tuned for a future post about the bill. Haven't got that yet... but I'm anticipating ugliness, as our plan has a ridiculously high deductible.

Unique, amusing, and effective distractions

A few days ago, the kid and I were listening to our city's classical station (89.3 FM). They were discussing an upcoming broadcast of an opera, playing snippets of it, raving about it, etc. Marcus was curious enough to ask me, "Mom, what's an opera?"

"Well, Honey, it's a play that's set to music."

"Who would think of that?"

I pondered this. "I guess people in Europe thought of it. Maybe someone composed the music, someone else added words to some songs, and then another person had the bright idea to base a story on a bunch of the songs together."

"What are they about?" he queried.

Now, I was on some unfamiliar ground here. I like classical music, can recognize a few pieces by ear, and have actually attended two operas in my life: one in German (Threepenny Opera) and the other in Italian (The Barber of Seville), both featuring gauche subtitles that ran over the performers' heads near the ceiling. They were pretty enjoyable—not something of which I'd want to make a steady diet, but pleasant and fun.

"Well," I answered with some hesitation, "they're sometimes about pretty dramatic things, like love and death and people stealing things from each other. But sometimes they're just about life, like on that one Arthur episode we saw where Muffy went to the opera. Remember?"

He thought for a moment. "Yeah, I remember, Binky made her go to the opera in her dream." This led to a discussion of that particular show, and further discussion about a segment after the show—a quick video that featured a real opera singer visiting a school and helping the young students compose an opera about a playground game where one kid wasn't following the rules.

Taking it a step further, I performed an impromptu solo piece, singing as if I were Daddy who just minutes ago had misplaced his keys. (I sang this to that tune from one of the most famous operas ever—I wish I could remember which! It was the same opera that was featured in that classic Bugs Bunny opera cartoon):

I cannot find them
I cannot find them
I cannot find them,
My elusive keys—

Anyway, the kid was amused. We composed another opera later while he took his bath, and this time the parts were played by bath toys like Pink Seal (soprano) and Orca (bass, of course). I voiced most of the silliness, but he did some too, and it cracked him up.

This morning, running on cement, the kid bit the dust and scraped his ankle. The first layer of skin was peeled away in a small spot, and by the time we'd made it into the bathroom for some Neosporin, the little bare circle of exposed under-skin was bloody. He was freaked out (blood always causes this response) and I tried to think of a quick way to avoid an all-out breakdown.

I suggested a spontaneous opera about this most recently acquired, oozing scrape. Better yet, we'd take it into the future when the scrape was already healed nicely. The scab would have a deep voice, but his voice would grow weaker as he prepared to fall off. The new skin would be much higher-pitched, soft at first and then triumphant as she emerged into the brightness of day. I launched into Act I to remove his mind from the current predicament:

Scab: I'm getting weaker... I feel my strength faaaaaaaaiiiiillllling... Oh nooooo! I can't hold on!!!

New Skin: What's this soft breeze? And this bright light? It feels so strange, and yet so right...

(You have to sing these lines for it to work, people. Yes, out loud. Now do it.)

The funny thing is that he stopped crying and started giggling instead. Perhaps that's the best thing about opera: yes, it can be quite dramatic and heart-wrenching and all that... but when you take it off the stage and start singing falsetto arias about the latest crisis in your life, it's nearly impossible not to laugh about it. The operatic interpretation of the mundane elevates that mundane to sublimely silly.

Try it. I'm serious. It's curiously liberating, and it forces a lighter perspective on the vast majority of subjects.

My neighbor, the nurse

So, the day before I started my new job was quite an injurious day for my son.

It began with an unsuspecting fall off the back of the couch. He likes to balance up there, his tiny bum perched on the cushy part where one would normally rest one's head. There he was, telling me some big animated tale, and the next thing I knew his feet were ascending and he was tipping over backward. A large thud later, there were many tears but thankfully nothing more serious than a sore noggin.

Then it was the bike. He and his dad went for a spin, and I checked in on them after a few minutes. He was riding gleefully, little helmet on, showing off for us and anyone else who'd watch, when he cut a turn a tad too sharply—the evil machine went over in a fraction of a second. Bike hit the pavement, boy simultaneously hit the pavement, and more tears flowed in addition to some blood—and as you know, the presence of blood always constitutes a "serious" injury. Add to the drama some lovely grey pieces of cinder inside the scratches, and you have a pretty nasty knee-and-hand combination.

The third event happened when I was inside after the bike wreck—an inexplicable fall down a couple of steps on our back patio. I missed the whole thing and heard about it later as we sat by the fire pit. (I was actually happy and relieved upon hearing it, because then I knew we were safe and my boy wouldn't plummet into the midst of the burning blaze. You know this stuff always happens in 3s; after that third mishap, we could relax because the third event had come and he was still standing. Whew.)

But even before the boy's evening bath, my husband and I were attempting to administer the necessary bacteria-killing agents to the mangled knee in our tiny, cramped bathroom. Blood-curdling screams burst forth from my son, who flailed every limb with extraordinary agility; we had just resorted to shutting the window (to squelch the sound, thus avoiding a visit from Children's Services) and holding his arms and legs immobile, when my neighbor knocked at our door with her customary "Yoo hoo!"

She wanted me to go for a walk with her, she'd heard the screams from the porch, she'd assumed some injury and figured she'd offer her expert services while encouraging me to get off my behind. Todd let her in, telling her what had happened, and she followed him to the bathroom—easy to find, thanks to the shrieks and sobs emanating from within. She popped in her head—"Hey, do you still have your leg? Did they cut it off? Let me see!" The screams stopped and my son actually permitted her to examine the skinned knee. Then she told him to wash it off in the bath and it would heal, good as new. And she tickled him, as is customary—and he laughed!!!

"Why do you calm down for Susan?" asked Todd, a tiny bit disgruntled at the sudden change in kid demeanor.

"Because she's a nurse!" answered my son, as if that explained everything.

Later, as we took our walk, I chuckled with Susan about the brief but revealing exchange she'd had with my boy. "My dad does it, too," she said. "My mom can't get him to use his walker the right way, he complains he can't get up by himself, makes a fuss, and then the therapist visits and suddenly he's hoofing around and standing on his own. And he gets furious when my mom complains to the therapist that he won't do that for her!" We giggled. "And he's 90!"

Why do we put on the brave face for healthcare folks, but resort to murderous yelps for our own family? What is the magic of a nurse, even when she's in street clothes and a very familiar face to boot? How are we able to be strong for one person but feeble for a team of others? It's silly, and I do believe the deception is far more rampant in men. Is it the male bravado? The need to put up the facade for the sake of the man's image in public? Would studies reveal it to be more prevalent in male patient/female healthcare worker situations?

Either way, the kid stopped crying... so I guess the whole brave face is a good thing. But I do suspect it's a silly boy/man thing.