What a Life!

This morning I was sitting quietly on the couch (upstairs) while the boys were playing downstairs. All of a sudden there was this loud crash [think: someone falling down the stairs while carrying a toy in their hands and landing on it somehow at the bottom] followed by agonizing screaming from Ben.

I went rushing over to the stairs to find Ben standing at the bottom with blood smeared all over his face and hands. (Sorry, no pictures.) My first two thoughts were 1) How many teeth did he bust out? and 2) How long will we be at the emergency room?

Being the good mother that I am, I led him upstairs to the bathroom and had him step in the tub. For one thing, the bathroom is where I have rags I could use to wipe him down and figure out where the blood was coming from. For another, yes, cleaning up a bloody mess would be much easier in the tub than downstairs on the carpet. [I am such a good mother.]

I got a rag out, wet it and gently started wiping his face. Turns out, he had a bloody nose – both sides. It was mostly over at this point – just a few occasional drips. Believe me, I’ve seen it where it’s dripping once a second or faster and you wonder how you’ll ever get it to stop. In those cases, I usually call my husband (from whom the propensity for bloody noses was inherited) and ask him what to do and how soon it will stop (I swear, I can never remember).

Once I had him cleaned up (including a fresh shirt and socks), I retraced our steps, wiping blood off the walls and door frames. [For some reason, he cannot walk through the house without touching everything within reach, especially when his hands are sticky from eating a banana…or having a bloody nose.] (Again, sorry, no pictures.)

My theory on the matter is that his nose suddenly started bleeding for no reason (as it is known to do) and he just sniffed a few times until he reached up to wipe his nose, at which point he saw blood, freaked out, threw his toy (the terrible crash) and started screaming bloody murder.

But the image of him standing at the bottom of the stairs with blood all over his hands and face, screaming, is one I will not soon forget. It was quite a scare, if I do say so myself. I’ve noticed there is still a little blood behind one ear, but tonight is bath night, and I know my husband cleans behind their ears.

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P.S. Check out my new favorite book. We have started actively homeschooling – just lots of reading with a little bit of phonics mixed in for now. My goal is to be up to speed [aka teaching all subjects] by July, when Ben turns six. I have so many ideas and plans, the hardest part is going to be figuring out how to do it all. I am so excited!