When I found out I was having a boy, my soul was set at ease. I had grown up with boys, so I felt that for my first round at Motherhood, I’d like to stick with something familiar. But then when I started telling people what we were having, I started to get the sympathetic looks and the “Oh you’re in for it!”. Then at my babyshower almost every mother there had some sort of horror ER story to share. I was in complete shock and fear. I must have suppressed any memories of watching my mother rush my brothers to the ER. None of this was in the book…or any other book for that matter! They never discussed this in the parenting classes. Nor was it in any of the pamphlets they passed out. It was mostly filled with tiny details about feeding, changing diapers, swaddling, etc. Not one word about an ER trip frequency! Of course not! That would make parenthood waaaay to easy! Well, as scared as I was, I felt relief that non of their stories spoke about injuries before 6 years old. So, I had some time.
What I didn’t take into account was my overachieving son who likes to do everything early! He cooed early. He sat up early. He crawled early. He started to read early. And on Wednesday November 14th my three year old lump of love broke his arm early! He holds the family record for age of breaking a limb! Like I said, he’s an over achiever! The school calls me and I swear to you, I have never in my life moved as fast as I moved that day! The car was still rolling as my mom parked when I hopped out of the car and made a swift stride for the school gate. I don’t know what was happening to me. I had no other thoughts except to get to my child. Then I heard his screams and I swear my feet had wings! I flew to my son! And there he was in the arms of his preschool teacher crying out for me and his dad with rosy cheeks and a sweat sheen kissing his hairline. I thought I would burst into tears at the sight of my son in absolute pain. It was horrible! I was completely helpless. So I swooped in in my best Superman impression and scooped up my son and headed toward the car. Every movement in his arm made him scream out in agony and my stomach turned 10 knots over.
We finally make it to the ER. I thought I would be safe. But it wasn’t until they finally pulled out the pain killers that I recognized the young man I called, Jax. By the time dinner came, my adrenaline had left my body and I was physically and emotionally crashing. I had had all the Mommy experience I could take for the day! Laissez les bons temps rouler! Word!
