The Preschooler Earns a New Callsign

Why yes, it has been another one of those weeks. And yes, that’s precisely why I haven’t blogged. I guarantee it’s not for lack of having something to blog about, let me assure you of that. In fact there was concrete evidence midweek that my moral compass has officially lost its own true north when, on my way to the emergency room I thought, “this is going to make a killer blog post!”

I really wish I were lying.

The ER trip came after three full days of mediation preparation at work. This might as well be called trial preparation in my book. In addition, my innards were doing flips and making quadruple slip-knots over my mother’s nonchalant comments about her new vision changes. Oh, okay, no biggie. Just one of the things her oncologist told us to look out for, since brain tumors are hard to detect until they start manifesting themselves in speech or vision changes. Don’t worry. Probably nothing. More tests … more tests.

So the ER really was a welcome distraction. And I’ll give you one guess which child this involves.

Any day now The Preschooler is going to be whisked away to circus school. He burps the alphabet, and can turn his stomach into a series of muscular waves that resemble that of a belly dancer. He contorts his tiny nimble body into a perfect loop and does “inside out” somersaults, the kind where his belly button, followed by his face, roll along the carpet. It’s really not human. He bends where he should not. He does sans-hands head spins where he twirls in a way break-dancers would envy, on the very tip of his head like a boy-shaped spinning top. He nimbly leaps across the great couch expanse, braving a glass table crevace, and consistently survives. These things all make him the ideal Cirque du Soleil candidate, and a perfect target for Gypsies.

Now in Naval Aviation the acronym they have assigned to this series of attributes is NAFOD: No Apparent Fear of Death. And even though it sounds kinda cool, it’s not a good thing. Not at all. It’s the thing that keeps you from being able to qualify at the boat, and it ends aviation careers. But it does make you a legend with the Second Grade girls. Gay-run-teed. And probably with the older girls, too.

So this week the boy-child, aka “NAFOD,” decided to leap from the top slide-side of the play equipment onto the platform “where all the girls were standing” and in the process collided INTO a large metal bar. The striking distance was short, but had to be powerful because it split the skin on top of his head clean open. I got a call from daycare and they didn’t sound too alarmed, so I reluctantly headed over to check it out.

When I arrived there was no crying. No crying at all. His hair was pink instead of sandy blonde from the blood, but otherwise there was no evidence of the event. He was coloring. “Look! I made a cheesy crocodile. It’s made of cheese. Get it?”

As he stood there, I parted the hair to confirm there was anything other than a scratch or a bump. I recoiled. It flapped in the breeze. It was the kind of wound that made you shiver a little and look away.

I had no idea how to care for a head wound in all of that hair, so off we went to the doctor. I figured we’d come home with a band-aid and the doctor would mock me for spending all that wasted time in the waiting room. But I reasoned that at least showing up would eliminate me from the running for Worst Mom of the Year for the third year running, and give me some confirmation that he wasn’t going to be (any more) brain-damaged.

Owie. Mommy.

Hm. Two staples later, Mother of the Year was not in sight. But Dude of the Year for this little guy was a distinct possibility. And NAFOD’s new callsign had been earned and confirmed. There was not a single tear shed as the doc scrubbed the wound and informed my five year-old he was going to need staples. That little man held his breath (but did not cry one bit) as the doctor clamped the top of his head together with two metal strips.

He was stupidly brave throughout the entire four hour adventure. NAFOD, indeed.

Afterwards, I took the poor kid where all ER visits should end: Cold Stone Creamery. He got his choice of cones and sat eating his gooey peanut butter double chocolate super wonderful delight waffle cone with a big fat smile on his face. And I’m pretty sure I saw him give a NAFOD wink to the cone-girl.

“Was it worth it?” I asked. “Was it worth two staples for a Creamery cone of your choice?” NAFOD took a momentary break from his cone just long enough to squeeze in a quick “totally” between licks. “Would you do it again for another cone?” I pressed. He looked at his cone with lust and replied with a long, slow “oh yeah, baby.”

I’m apparently raising a kid who’s too sexy for his ice cream cone.

"So totally worth it." Really?

But I guess the artist formerly known as The Preschooler has his priorities straight. I mean, what if we could all end the day with an ice cream cone that made all the chaos, pain, and worry go away? What if bringing ice cream sandwiches to a mediation obliterated the problems between litigants and made everyone smile and forget what they were fighting about? What if a Peanut Buster Parfait were the prescription for blind spots in eyes, or the treatment recommended to cure mysterious shadows on CT scans and MRI’s?

What if? I’ll tell you what if. I’d be out of a job.

And I’d be really, really, really fat.