Boys and Bandaids




I realized I made a mistake long ago and never bought stock options for band aid makers. I could have made a fortune if this past week was any indicator.

This past weekend Soren was eaten by the end table monster. I don't know how. I assume that children are made of 1/3 Play-Dough, and can contort their bodies into various ways we adults can only imagine. Our end table is fairly solid, and looks like a mindless piece of furniture. But when you combine a two year old and an inanimate piece of furniture I can assure you that anything goes.

Consider the extreme sport of couch jumping. This is a household favorite, and many of the boys friends eagerly await an invitation to our home so that they too can join in. The only reason couch jumping is allowed in my house is because my floors are covered with soft "almost white" carpets, and it gives me a good reason to reinforce the fact that *I* am NOT a playground.

Or toy box hopping. In case you're unfamiliar with this sport I'll give a brief explanation. This is when your child dumps out all of the toys in the toy box, contorts his tiny body into shapes never taught in geometry to allow himself to get in, and then proceeds to "hop" the toy box from one end of the room to the other.

So I am quite used to the weird happening in my house when you have small folk and objects in the house. Their ability to make the impossible possible is uncanny. Hence, I don't even question the end table incident. All I know is that one moment Soren was happily playing beside me, and the next his fingers were caught in the maw of the end table.

It took me two frantic minutes to rescue him from the end table monster, the whole time screaming for J for help and trying to calm Soren down so I could maneuver myself around to try and save him. I admit it was one of those scary moments. I could not figure out how he got his hands caught in the first place, and how to remove his fingers without further damaging them. I drank a lot that night.

I finally freed him and the poor boy had two gouges on his fingers. One wasn't too bad, but the one on his middle finger was deep. Fortunately it wasn't too deep to require stitches but I paid close attention to it for the following week. After rinsing his hand in cold water to reduce swelling, and cleaning it out, I gave him two band aids and a popsicle. He was content, but still shaken, and spent the rest of the day super glued to my side which I could totally relate to. I wanted him close by as well.

But the band aids! Oh. My. God. You have to understand I have a giant box of band aids from BJ's since I have three kids, all rough and tumble boys. But I think I went through at least 3/4 of the box this week alone. Not because they needed changing, but because Soren kept losing them! It was like every 5 minutes something would happen to make those damn things fall off. I tried everything, from adding more on, doubling up, even taping them. I came close to pulling out the superglue. No luck. And Soren flipped out if one fell off. On the bright side, he learned a new word: booboo. He would screech it day and night indignantly the moment a band aid fell off. In the end I started carrying a mini first aid kit in my pants pocket so I wouldn't have to make a trip to the band aid box every 15 minutes. I do believe that there is now a permanent trail depression in my "almost white" carpets from the couch to the kitchen where the band aids are kept.

Yesterday, when (another) one fell off, I finally put my foot down. The cuts look clean and are healing up nicely. I told him now his booboos needed clean air in order to heal the rest of the way. He gave me a sideways look but conceded to moms authority. I thought that was the end of it.

But now he's asking for band aids for his 427 stuffed animals.