i remember the adventures to the sinkhole just beyond the edge of our neighborhood. the boys would use tree vines to careen to the bottom and then race each other to the top while the girls danced around the perimeter and threw leaves into the center....watching to see whose floated to the bottom the fastest. i remember cartwheels and somersaults on freshly cut grass, water balloon fights, and the smell of the grill as we were called in for dinnertime.
some of the memories are fuzzy. but one stands out. the one about a boy named josh. i remember him as the wild member of the crew who could never sit still and always seemed to be doing something dangerous. on the evening of this particular memory, we had gathered in the cul de sac at the end of the street. between bicycles and hula hoops, jump ropes and super soakers....it was block party of sorts, filled with evening excitement and an energy that you could feel. our parents were there as well and shared grown up conversation as we all squeezed out the last bits of the days energy. i had just learned how to ride a bike without pedal brakes....a pink bike with a flowered seat and tassles on the handlebars. josh decided that he wanted to give it a try and so i offered up my bike for a spin. he climbed aboard and with the swarm of us behind him, took of confidently down the street. it wasn't long before he was going fast....fast enough that despite his wild streak he sensed he should slow down. only he didn't know how and was too scared to listen to explanations of how to do it as we ran beside him. he lost control of the bike, flying over its pink-tasseled handle bars and landed face first on the concrete and slid to stop across his bare chest in the street. that moment, the sound of his slide and the screams that followed, are etched into my brain. a trip to the ER, some stitches and lots of bandages later he was just fine.
it has not taken 25 years and motherhood to teach me that boys and girls are different. i learned that the hard way having a brother who along with his friends found fun in putting firecrackers in mailboxes growing up. even watching my husband and his group of guy friends can easily illustrate the difference between them and the girls. lets just say that smoking cigars, playing beer pong, and shooting guns in the woods will not be itinerary of "girls night" any time soon.
this weekend, benjamin waved his "Y" chromosome proudly and it landed us right smack in the ER first thing saturday morning. like any boy would, he HATES having his diaper changed or his face wiped....both of which needed to be done after he woke up, early mind you. as i laid him down to clean him up, he propelled himself off headfirst. much like the experience with josh, it happened fast yet in slow motion all at the same time. he was headed toward the ground with his head in the lead ~ my foot instinctively flipped him around and he landed flat on his back. and then the screaming began. and continued for 2 straight hours. blood curdling ear piercing screams that would not stop no matter what we did. cuddles, food, tylenol....he wasn't having any of it. i tried to set him down and he just plopped on the ground, screaming louder. ben is, as anyone who knows him will attest, just about the most loving an easygoing dude around so this behavior was really not like him at all....and truthfully quite scary. so to the ER we went.
the screaming continued in the ER....so loudly that the head doctor met us in the triage area curious as to what was going on. he screamed and flailed and wouldn't let anyone touch him. not even enough to have a reasonable exam done. after an initial discussion and exam....the doctors looked me square in the face and told me that based on the fact that they couldn't find any one place he was hurting coupled with the way he was acting....they were concerned for a "brain bleed" and that he was going to need a CT scan of his head. NOT the relaxing saturday i had imagined.
me, the ER physician, and two nurses held him down to give him some some ibuprofen and 3 hours after the original fall he finally started to calm down a little. they wheeled us to the CT scanner on his stretcher and by the time we got done with that, he was fast asleep in my arms. after an hour nap, and news that the CT was completely normal, he woke up good as new. as if nothing had happened. as if my heart hadn't been ripped out of my body and run over by a mack truck. he asked for a "cacka mil" (cracker & milk) and went straight to flirting with the nurses. after he was done eating, he insisted on doing laps around the nurses station and it wasn't long before we were being discharged with a clean bill of health and shoulder shrugs as the doctors and i were both left saying, "i have no idea what the problem was!".
take home message. boys will be boys. he spent the rest of the weekend bumping his head on things, opening cabinets and pulling things out, and sneaking into his sisters room to jump on her bed. i pray that he will not be as wild as that boy named josh and that this will be the last of our ER visits. i see many a grey hair in my future if this behavior persists.
emma on the other hand, was quite content to do her gymnastics, dance to justin bieber (a new obsession), and "set up for a party" all weekend. she emptied our hutch of all our stored paper products and set them up all over the house in anticipation of a party she had planned in her head. we've been hosting so many festivities over here lately that she's getting the hang of this hostess thing already!
** photos courtesy of my iPhone since i'm so busy chasing these rascals i barely break out the dslr anymore. someday. **
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