Life with boys

If I am going to get through my boys growing years, I realized the other day that I am going to need to toughen up.

On Wednesday we were having a play date at a friend's house. Being the cautious parent I think I am, Benjamin and Matthew were slathered with sunscreen and bug spray, and I sent them off to play in the backyard with their friend as I hung out with my own mommy friend, Jennifer. The boys had a blast playing outside in the woods and on the new outdoor play set of our friends. After several hours when we were preparing to go, I sent Benjamin out to retrieve the toys they had been playing with. A couple minutes later, Benjamin rushed into the house, explaining that there was a snake in the club house. At first, I thought it was a joke-Benjamin is at the age where he likes to see my reaction to such news, so at first I didn't take him seriously. We all trudged outside to see the alleged snake and low and behold, there it was, in the corner of the playhouse WHERE MY KIDS HAD BEEN PLAYING! When Benjamin had picked up the toys minutes earlier he discovered the snake underneath, just centimeters from his hands. I felt dizzy at the thought. My friend Jennifer, a native of North Carolina, assured me that it was a non-poisonous black snake. Apparently that is a good thing--the people of North Carolina value the black snake and it's ability to keep away rodents from their homes. And since it wasn't a huge snake, she said that even if the boys had been bitten, it would have only felt like a small pinch. However, that was not exactly reassuring for me to hear. I had another dizzy/faint feeling upon hearing this information and knowing that our kids were in the close proximity of a snake that could have bitten them.
Upon arriving home, we decided that after playing in the hot sun (and with snakes), we would get ready to go to the pool. As I was preparing the pool bag and dressing myself, the boys were playing in Benjamin's room. I could hear them laughing and the occasional thump coming from upstairs. I did what I swore I'd never do before kids (yet I do it all the time), I yelled through the house from downstairs, "Don't jump on the bed!" After a couple minutes of quiet, a blood-curdling scream emerged from upstairs. When you hear your child cry out like that, in the millisecond it takes you to realize that there is something seriously wrong and that this is not minor cry or a fake-attention-getting cry, it's utterly terrifying. I rushed toward the stairs--in slow motion of course, because for some reason in those moments, every movement seems to take forever, and you cannot seem to get to your child fast enough--and stood at the bottom. I looked up in horror to see Matthew's hands cupped underneath his mouth, which was full of blood and Benjamin staring at me in shock. I screamed (something I am not proud to admit), "WHAT HAPPENED!!!" Benjamin tried to explain, as I rushed Matthew into the bathroom, that they had been playing some sort of game (still on the bed) and Matthew had fallen forward and landed on a paperback Harry Potter book. Yes, a paperback book. No, not a bookshelf as my husband thought I meant when I spoke to him later, but a simple paperback book. And what caused all the blood was the fact that this book dislodged Matthew's second upper tooth, the one that was just starting to get the slightest bit wiggly, but was by no means ready to come out. Somehow in the midst of all of that, Matthew had managed to retrieve the tooth and opened his hand to give it to me as Benjamin explained. I sat there on the toilet, holding a wad of toilet paper in Matthew's mouth, trying to sop up the blood. My heart rate slowly began to return to normal when I realized it was nothing more than a tooth lost. I managed to put on a brave face for Matthew, despite still feeling shaken, so that he would not react to me freaking out and told him how cool it was that no one would have to pull that tooth out now and that the tooth fairy would get to visit again. After the bleeding had finally stopped and his mouth was rinsed out, I sent them to the car so we could go to the pool and realized that I was shaking.

On my way to the pool I felt exhausted, as if I'd just exerted myself, which I guess I kind of had. I couldn't help thinking that after the events of the day, maybe we shouldn't be going to the pool. Maybe we should just stay home and try to keep away from anything possibly dangerous. But everything turned out fine, there were no scares or emergencies, and we all enjoyed the cool, calm waters of the swimming pool. The margarita I enjoyed later that evening was also helpful in calming my frazzled nerves!