“They must wait till her brain is set to right”

 

While in the midst of their usual before-bed brawl, Isaac ended up as the one who “tripped” and hit his head on the wood footboard of his bed.  I was of course angry that they had been fighting and, in a few choice words, insisted they go to bed at once.  Furthermore, as they were looking for their pillows, I told them the dangers of head wounds and how someone could get seriously hurt.  I carelessly threw out words like concussion, coma, brain damage, paralysis, etc., then gave them kisses good night and took the wounded Isaac upstairs for an ice pack.  He just had a bump on the skull and no signs of concussion but those words I threw out came back to him and he started crying thinking he was going to die.  Oops.  I assured him that he was o.k. and that I was just letting them know the kinds of things that can happen when little boys rough-house too much, especially around large pointy pieces of wood furniture.  Douglas, who was also concerned, came up and wanted more clarification into what all of those words meant.  He also told me that it was time for us to get them a book on medicine.  Either I’ve got a hypochondriac in the making or a future doctor.  I’ll have to look into that kind of book but one that is 9 year old appropriate which lightly touches on other more sensitive subjects.  I’m not ready for certain talks especially with illustrations.  That must be a sign of some sort of immaturity on my part, but that talk is just not happening yet.  Thanks to some dinosaur documentary they watched, Reed refers to the term “mating” when discussing baby animals, etc.  I don’t know how much he grasps but… Ah well, the lesson to be learned from this experience is use words like “owie” instead of brain damage, and “boo-boo” instead of paralysis.