Last night was the annual Christmas program at our church school. As always, everyone showed up starched and shined. They sang their hearts out and astonished all of us with their performance of "He Gave Everything," a drama that had us laughing at times and crying at others. Well, Rita Baker, she of the soft heart and five boys, cried. I don't know that the rest of us did.
(Here's Jenny surrounded by boys, which often seems to be her lot in life)
By what combination of skill and luck and sheer magic Miss Amy pulled believable, authentic performances out of teenaged guys, we will never know. All I know is that she had 15-year-olds, a species known for mumbling and scoffing and shuffling, up there enunciating clearly and taking on their characters like they meant it.
As the principal's wife and the teacher's mom, I played my usual role of sending my frozen Christmas turkey to school and seeing it get schlepped around onstage, scavenging at the last minute for a flashlight for Paul the lighting guy, and arranging dozens of plates of food afterwards, a Mennonite Christmas-program feast at its best.
Unfortunately, a few teenaged boys, no doubt tired of being trussed up in white shirts and dress pants, relieved that the program was over, and fueled by a few too many pieces of Aunt Bonnie's famous fudge, decided to go into the sanctuary and run around the perimeter. . . with the lights off.
Now there are these thick beams that go up the walls in the sanctuary and arch up like they're holding up the roof. And you know what's coming, don't you? One of the boys--that would be mine of course--crashed into a beam.
I was shortly summoned to the boys' restroom, where I got to see my nice calm son with a chunk of flesh dangling from his upper lip, with lots of blood all around. His tooth had gone right through his lip and ripped off a pea-sized piece; amazingly, the teeth are fine.
We took him home and gently fitted the chunk back where it came from and held it there with a band-aid. Today he went to school and my nurse friend Sharon came and looked at it and said we did the right thing, and they seldom stitch up things like this so there's no need for a doctor unless it gets infected or something.
Today, I am fine again. The son is also fine, except he's having a little trouble with eating and drinking, especially since his mouth was still sore from when he stuck a lighted match in it a few days before, showing off of course, and miscalculated the temperature and direction just a bit.
Quote of the Day:
"Mom, we weren't running; we were jogging."
--my son's friend
Hydrogen peroxide will take the blood right out...it will get hot as anything, and you will have to apply it several times, but it works like a dream.
ReplyDelete(I learned this from a nurse in the hospital after having given birth to my son in one of my favorite T-shirts. Even days later, the blood came out.
Oh Dorcas! I was gasping about the incident as I read! I notice you were very careful to not mention WHICH son it was and all. Hopefully a bit of sense was knocked in his head during the collision!~Edith
ReplyDeleteIsn't that so like our children- make you proud as anything one minute and completely dissapointed the next. Hopefully, this added a batch of wisdom to the poor boy.
ReplyDeleteMerideth, if you check the pic close enough you can tell which son it was! Pauline
ReplyDeleteAnd comment #2: Rita, I cried, too. Pauline
ReplyDeleteGood Lord. My Mommy insides went all cold and quivery at the "chunk of lip" thing. And then the lighted match!? Surely this incident must be worth several gray hairs, and a nervous twitch too. Then again you've raised enough boys to perhaps take it more in stride than I would! I would have been camped out in the ER for three hours only to have them put on a band-aid and send me home.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of one hot summer when my daughter was part of the Oregon Children's Choir and they had the festival in Eugene and one of the members of a visiting choir passed out like that as well and hit her head on one of the pews...but I found it interesting because the interior of the church was what reminded me of the incident, with the wooden arches....
ReplyDelete