A child’s boo-boo and scabs that look like Iceland

As the kids and I were playing on the driveway I was thinking to myself how lucky I am.  It’s a great life, the kids are healthy and nobody has had an accident in a really long time. Parenting tip: A parent should be careful about being thankful for the lapse in time between accidents.

In his mind’s eye he was probably going down a mountain road with wheels on his hands and feet.  His cat-like five year old reflexes helping him navigate every corner, narrowly avoiding angry bears (ants on the driveway) and carefully staying in the chalk road that he had just drawn.

And then his arms go in opposite directions and his feet that didn’t have wheels on them at all simply fail him and cause the young Octonaut to crash.  His cat-like reflexes were quick enough to have his elbows catch the fall and in reality it wasn’t that bad.  It was a series of scrapes that in the end would create a scab about 3” wide.

Unfortunately the scab didn’t even have a cool shape.  If it were shaped like a rocket, pirate, Bat-Man or Wolverine it would’ve provided him a cooler story.  Instead his scab just looked like Iceland, a semi-oval shape with jagged edges here and there.

I gave him a hug, but at this stage of the accident, he wanted mommy.  She gave him the same hug, but followed it with a trip inside to get some chocolate.

During bath time he was a recovering mess. He was worried about his boo-boo, said that it hurt and refused to get it wet.  Even the offer of letting him pour the Spider-Man bubble solution into the water offered little solace to our five year old with a flesh wound.

As mom was getting him into bed he desperately asked mom to get the red stuff off.  Get it off, get it off he pleaded on the verge of more tears and the dreaded meltdown just before bed time.

“I can’t get it off you buddy, it’s coming from you”, she said.

“You mean I’m LEAKING”, he said with desperate frustration.

For a moment he was Baymax in the bedroom.  A once tear-less wonder that had been felled by gravity, kabuki man and the curiosity of being a five year old.

To my wife’s credit she didn’t laugh at his leaking comment.

“No buddy, you’re not leaking, you’ve just got a little boo boo that’ll be better in the morning”, she said.  Sure enough, in the morning he was all better, even though his scab looked like Iceland and not something that he could relate to.