War Wounds

Today at the park, Jacob got a war wound. He was scratched in the face by an evil child. His scratch is small, but runs from the corner of his left eye running down the side of his cheek. I have run into several evil children in my comings and goings with Nick, Jacob and Lyla, some of which are my own. The evil child pops out sometimes for only a split second, but that second can be plenty. I was told that Jacob was yelling in the little boy's face prompting him to attempt scratching out Jacob's eyeballs. On some level, I do empathize with the little boy; who wants a psycho yelling in your face? But, when the psycho is my child, well, I try to be a little more patient.

Luckily, Jacob did not turn in to an instant drama king. Everyone else in our family would have. Trust me. My husband and I have bred a home full of over-the-top emotional children. Actually, I figure the children are just taking after us. At times, both Rick and I are overly sensitive and emotional. If any of our children happened to be born without this trait, an instant DNA test would be appropriate to verify the obvious: a switch at birth.

All of this talk about being emotional leads me to another example of a war wound.

Natalie, my husband's youngest sister, who is now 18yrs. old, got a scratch on the top of her foot once during one of our visits. It was not a deep scratch; it was not bleeding. It was merely a break in the skin on the top of her foot in the shape of a line. Well, I remember that she totally freaked out, balling her eyes out. She sat on the kitchen floor, looking closely at the scratch whimpering that the scratch was overlying a vein on her foot, and that she would inevitably need medical assistance. Hilarious! Her mother promptly asked her if she needed to go to the ER to which she responded, "Nooooo!" with her bottom lip poking out. Please keep in mind the most important part of this story.... Natalie was then 14.

Now, when our children make a huge deal out of an extremely minor injury, we ask, "Do you need to go to the ER?" Nick has recently caught on and now says yes.