Please Remain Calm

As I've mentioned in a recent post, my son is experiencing a great deal of faceplants these days. Which are leading to a great deal of nosebleeds.

The worst one yet took place just after I wrote that post. We were at Pump It Up, the toddler birthday party version of Girls Gone Wild, for the party of one of my younger daughter's classmates. If you've ever been to one of these jumpy-house-places-on-crack you would know that there are any number of places he could have knocked his noggin. And most of them are soft. Although, while he played with the basketball in one of the jump houses, I was just waiting for it to land smack on his face as he looked up to see where it went. I at least figured he was in for a good body slam with one of the many "big kids" that were jumping like crazy and bouncing off the walls.

But, no. Nothing that complex for my son.

Instead he decided to, in the middle of absolutely nothing, spin around in circles on the floor (no, not a jumpy house) and make himself so dizzy that he fell over. Flat on his face.

It was a work of genius.

About two point two seconds after he looks up at me bawling, I see a gusher starting. I did stay calm and took him out to the bathroom where we eventually got it all cleaned up. It frightened the girl working there enough that she went running for an ice pack. But he's a tough guy and he didn't want that sissy ice.

Once he was cleaned up he just wanted to get back into the ring. So we went off bouncing and sliding again, thankfully blood free for the rest of the event.

I have to say that I was really calm during it all. Must be because of all the tactical, high level training he's put me through lately.

But then today I saw the aftermath of a little girls face meeting some concrete outside my younger daughter's school. And I almost lost my lunch.

I know, I know. Not even my own kid. But I guess when it's your kid you have more adrenaline keeping you in control. Or you aren't such a gawker because you are thinking about how the hell you are going to stop the bleeding, all the while scanning your Mommy GPS to figure out the whereabouts of the nearest hospital.

Plus, this poor little girl was bleeding WAY more than my son's nose ever did, most likely because she was bleeding in her mouth as well. There was so much blood that her mom couldn't tell where it was coming from, and all the while the girl is crying profusely and starting to gag, presumably because she's swallowing some of the blood. It just wasn't pretty.

My heart went out to them, and I offered wipes. Yes, wipes. It's all I could come up with. Another mom had gone for paper towels and help from the school office, and another mom was following directions and fetching the little girls pacifier from their car. Clearly they were a lot more helpful than me.

And while I'm there with what I'm sure was a terrified look on my face, doing so little that picking my nose would have been a viable option, the mom of this girl is staying very calm. She's trying to wipe her daughter's face and figure out where she's bleeding. And she even thought about getting the pacifier out of the car so the girl would stop crying and hold still.

Eventually all I could do was duck into my car and go. I did wait until other help arrived, and I even gave my feeble, but true, excuse that I had to go pick up my son.

So I got back in the car and for the next 10 minutes I felt nauseous and spaced out. I couldn't even hold a conversation with my 4 year old to save my life.

That one really knocked me for a loop. It made me wonder just how I would have acted in the same situation. I only hope that I will be as calm as this woman was today.

Because I can tell you with absolute certainty that I will be in a similar situation one day. The odds are just with me, given that I have three children, and one of them is a spin-around-in-circles-and-fall-flat-on-my-face kind of kid.