Boys. There are times that there is not much more you can say. My middle boy got a new bike for his birthday, so he was out testing it. For some unknown reason, he decided to go as fast as he could and then slam on only the front brake.
Well… you can guess what happened. He went sliding forward and hit an unmentionable part of his body hard against the post for the handlebars. Result – one kid lying moaning on the road, walking funny back to the house, hurting.
Boys. What does this son do next? Of course, tells his brothers who have gathered round to see why he is moaning in pain, “Hey, you ought to try riding real fast and then slamming on your front brake. It’s real sweet!”
Boys. So, of course, son #3 promptly heads off to repeat the experience. Result – another boy lying on the road moaning and then walking funny.
Meanwhile, my middle son comes up to me with a worried whisper, “Mom, do you think I will still be able to have kids?” Ha! Now is the time to worry about that! (This comes from his dad telling him he can’t have a bigger bike until he can reach the ground so he will still be able to have kids.) After a brief reassurance that, yes, I think he can still have kids, but don’t try that again, he goes off to check with boy #3 on how his trip into the handlebars went.
Boys. You would think that two down would be enough, especially since boy #1 is slightly older than boy #3 and should know better. No. He takes off, knowing full well that this will hurt, to do the same thing. Thankfully, maybe, boy #1 has never been half-hearted in anything he does and has no fear or respect of pain. He speeds up much, much faster than his two brothers and slams on the brake so hard that he catapults over the handlebars, thus preserving his child-producing abilities completely, and slams top first into the road. (Thank God for helmets!) Of course, he gets up moaning and groaning, too, but it is only his pinky that is swollen and turning blue.
Well, after two warnings of the basic fact that this event will cause pain, I am only so sympathetic, and tell him to put ice on it for a few minutes before I examine it and conclude that he likely broke the finger, so I tape the pinky to the finger next to it.
After a night of moaning that the finger “really, really hurts mom!”, guilt begins to set in. He is my son, as foolish as he is at times, and he is only eleven. The poor kid will need his fingers. What if I don’t care for him well, and he ends up not able to move his finger and the rest of his life I look at it and think, “I should have taken him to be seen to.”
Guilt wins, and after a nine hour wait in a cold ER with no place to sit, the doctor comes in with the grim news. The finger is broken. We will have to tape it to the next finger for a few weeks for it to heal! ARGH!
At least I don’t feel guilty anymore.
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