Beauty in the day: he is little. Teeny-tiny. He’s one of those teeny-tiny packages that pack a wallop. He came in before school with a nasty scrape on his forearm, the wound bright red. He was HOWLING. My poor assistant was trying to dab at the spot, which only made him howl more. Those little packages can make a lot of noise. 😉
I jumped in, if only to rescue my assistant and put and end to his misery. I grabbed some gauze, and got him to look at me while I counted loudly out loud, “1, 2, 3, 4,” and made some quick work of wiping away the redness.
“Here, buddy, hold this,” I told him, and grabbed his free hand to hold the fresh gauze over the scrape (at this point, it was medically unnecessary, but emotionally necessary).
His trauma scale was now at a 7 from the original 10, evidenced by the heavy breathing coupled with the FIERY level look he was aiming at me. I began to open a bandaid package. “I do NOT want a BIG bandaid!” he informed me in no uncertain terms.
I set down the big bandaid with great pomp, and grabbed up a medium one. I didn’t wait for his opinion, but started talking my way through it rapidly, having sized up my foe and determined the best course to confuse him. I placed it over his wound, and he took 3 even breaths, and then turned on his heel to head to class, muttering loudly to himself as he went.
At lunch, he returned. “Take it off,” he said regally and with great importance.
“Oh, no. No, we will not take if off, friend, because you have a scrape under there that needs to heal.”
“It is better now,” he dictated. “Take it off!”
“Nope. Sorry, buddy. Not taking it off. That needs to stay on.”
We had a short argument then, him wrangling to remove the bandaid, and me standing my ground. I came up with a compromise. “Okay, we can take it off so you can look at it, but then I will cover it back up with a new one.” He felt this to be preposterous (which it was), and opted to leave it on.
“Make sure you show it to your mom when you get home, and she can decide if you can take it off.”
I’ve never seen a 5-year-old master the technique of the double-take…until now. He screwed his face up tight and looked at me with the scoffing-est of scoffing looks. “I will NOT show it to my mother!” he said over his shoulder, as he exited the office with the swiftness of one who isn’t interested in getting caught up and any more ridiculous conversation.
It’s important that our jobs are not around the clock. I can likely use the down time to restrategize.