Put a Band-Aid on it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about as typical an injury response as you\u2019ll ever get from a father. Kid is missing three layers of skin? Put a Band-Aid on it.<\/p>\n
Bone is protruding at a 90-degree angle? Grab a stick from the yard as a splint and put a Band-Aid on it. Major gastrointestinal problems? Crush up a Band-Aid, add to boiling water with a pinch of lemon and drink it. Soothes the savage beast.
\n
\nWe dads don\u2019t see injuries. We see minor flesh wounds that aren\u2019t worth worrying over. If it were up to men, hospitals never would have been invented. In their place we would have constructed bandage dispensaries with fortune cookie-like advice: \u201cThe more blood you lose, the more you gain.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s who we are. For some it\u2019s a macho thing \u2014 \u201cMy kid is tough. He falls off the roof all the time. Once we pop his hip back in, he\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t fall into that category. For me, it\u2019s more a lack of common sense \u2014 that I never remember which day I\u2019m allowed to check out the one communal brain cell all men are allowed to share. So too often I go without.<\/p>\n
When my daughter gets injured, I take a \u201cpositive\u201d approach, mainly by saying comforting things like: \u201cOh, come now. Don\u2019t cry. Crashing into that tree at full speed on your scooter couldn\u2019t hurt THAT much? I mean, your helmet is only in two pieces!\u201d I\u2019ve always been like that.<\/p>\n
Then it happened.<\/p>\n
Maybe it was because the Band-Aid was already on. I was thrown off. Couldn\u2019t go with my regular advice. I could see the blood soaking through the gauze as my daughter choked back tears.<\/p>\n
She was just home from the movies with my wife. As she shut the door to the car, the tip of an index finger didn\u2019t get out of the way in time. Been there? I was outside when it happened. Heard the scream. She has good pipes. It was enough to straighten all the hair on my legs.<\/p>\n
It couldn\u2019t have come at a worse time. I was working under the house on a water line to an outside faucet. I had mucked it up and it was leaking. That meant the water was off in the house. Of course the water was off! Otherwise, it would be too easy to clean up a bloody finger on a crying child.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t allowed to look at it right away. Dads never are. Everyone knows we can\u2019t be productive in first aid situations, and we\u2019re only called for after the initial trauma care. We\u2019re brought in to provide analysis or context. To give our hearty, \u201cOh, it\u2019s not that bad. Did I ever tell you about the time a badger chewed off my ankle?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what we\u2019re good for in these situations.<\/p>\n
My wife was carefully removing the little Mickey Mouse bandage, dreading the injury pronouncement she knew was coming.<\/p>\n
But as it came off, something very extraordinary \u2014 something quite unbelievable! \u2014 streamed from my mouth: \u201cOK,\u201d said a voice that sounded like mine. \u201cLet\u2019s go to the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
It caught me off guard, too. Was my wife a ventriloquist? Could I \u2014 a card-carrying father \u2026 a guy who once cut his hand on a piece of rebar, but decided to wrap it in a paper towel so I could keep pouring concrete instead of going for stitches \u2014 could I have just said that?!?<\/p>\n
But this was something new.<\/p>\n
When I saw the little mauled finger \u2014 purple like a tiny plum, a gaping gash on the tip and a black bruise near the knuckle \u2014 a voice I had never heard before spoke up. I don\u2019t know where it came from, or who it answers to. I just know it was a serious voice. A commanding voice \u2014 it took control and gave orders, and next thing I knew we were all moving for the car, and feeling a bit better.<\/p>\n
Was that really me?<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t turn out to be that serious an injury. No broken bones. No stitches required. It\u2019s mean-looking, and I get a tingly sensation in the regions of my nether every time I look at it. Truth is, we probably could have gotten away with a good cleaning and a bandage.<\/p>\n
But, man, it sure felt good to be the concerned dad for once. The overly-cautious dad. The responsible dad I\u2019ve never been before. I sleep better, prouder, and don\u2019t worry about gangrene setting in if I was wrong. Besides, one thing I learned is the hospital sure does have good Band-Aids. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Put a Band-Aid on it. It\u2019s about as typical an injury response as you\u2019ll ever get from a father. Kid is missing three layers of skin? Put a Band-Aid on it. Bone is protruding at a 90-degree angle? Grab a stick from the yard as a splint and put a Band-Aid on it. Major gastrointestinal problems? Crush up a Band-Aid, add to boiling water with a pinch of lemon and drink it. Soothes the savage beast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317,8],"tags":[29,368,369,370,124],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-nutshells","category-parenthoodandchildren","tag-children","tag-finger-in-car-door","tag-hospital","tag-injury","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}