Saturday night was relatively routine. We had finished dinner and the evening ritual of mucking up from the day of eating was underway. Tucker and Isabelle bring dishes into the kitchen, where I load into the dishwasher. Keats, Aidan, and Abigail crawl around under the table picking up all the bits of food which fell during the course of shoveling it into mouths. (We really are working on table manners. Sigh.) Shelby was wiping/scrubbing/chiseling the table top clean before Scott lifted the benches and chairs onto the table so we could vacuum underneath. Just our normal, post-dinner ritual.
It was Dawson's turn to bathe Sir Elyas in order to remove his self-feeding misses, so the two of them had been upstairs together for several minutes when our Saturday night became not normal. Well, that isn't really true. The fact that someone was hurt and bleeding is actually a pretty common occurrence. You know -- five rowdy boys and three eager to join sisters. It was the fact that it was Elyas who was shrieking which made it unusual.
He is one tough cookie. Elyas whacks his head, cries "Ow!" while rubbing the sore spot and then goes on about his toddling. He rarely cries and if he should be crying, it is usually over within seconds.
However, Elyas chose to take on the enameled bathtub with his teeth Saturday night and the tub most assuradly won. First Scott held him while he cried and bled a puddle onto Scott's shirt. He kept looking at me with huge, tear-filled eyes and then would bury his face back into Scott. Finally, he lifted his arms slightly in a very pathetic attempt to say, please mother, won't you hold me?
I was no better than Scott though at stemming the flow of weeps and wails. It just continued and continued and continued. Eventually, he went back to Scott who resumed his efforts to try to calm Elyas down. Nothing. Back to me he came. Scott had been pointing out family members in pictures with Elyas, usually a favorite activity, so I took over. Meanwhile, Scott went to put in a call to our dentist. We knew from our experience with other dental injuries that there wasn't much that could be done, but we were becoming concerned at the sheer amount of time he was continuing to cry. Of course, the bloody gums surrounding tiny teeth and an upper lip with a distinct similarity to a Who from Whoville look was also a little alarming.
Eventually, Elyas calmed down enough to weep the word football over and over. Behind our family pictures on the mantle is a signed photograph of Brian Dawkins from his Eagles days. There was simply no way for me to retrieve the picture one handed while continuing to comfort Elyas so he just kept crying and saying football.
The kids sprang into action bringing Elyas the large football he carries around during the day. No good. Then we remembered a smaller, Chuck-E Cheese football my brother had given him which had been played with continuously for weeks before it disappeared. A whole house hunt ensued until it was unearthed in the outside toy bin. By now we were sitting in the large rocking chair while Elyas clutched his little football continuing to cry and Scott had moved onto the pediatrician.
Still crying, but able to communicate a little more, Elyas could now cry the word football while pointing at the TV. It took a few moments for it to register that he was asking to watch football. Uh-oh. Saturday night, football season is practically over, and the one channel that might be helpful was playing old Super Bowl ads. Drat that NFL channel -- they are just good for nothing. And then I remembered the super-capacity TiVo which had several games recorded and deleted from the season. But our new TiVo means that shows aren't really deleted until the machine needs the space. And at 900 hours of recording time, I knew the deleted folder should be a gold mine of football games. Success!!!
We had the Eagles/Packers game on within moments and after almost an hour, Elyas's tears began to subside. He held his little football in one hand, pointed to the players with the other, and ow-ed as the tackels occurred. And then, just like magic, the ball crossed the end zone, Elyas joyfully yelled "Touchdown!" and his tears were officially over. He grinned as he continued to watch the game with the rest of the family.
Of course, both the dentist and the pediatrician told us there wasn't much we could do other than give him Motrin, which we did back at the beginning. Any bump in the general area of his mouth brought about an additional round of weeping and it wasn't until late Monday that he really seemed to be better. But we learned something in the process. The Super Bowl game is now safely burned on a DVD for later medicinal use.
For some of our children, Baby Einstein did the trick. For others it was Five little Ladybugs. For Elyas? Football.
It was Dawson's turn to bathe Sir Elyas in order to remove his self-feeding misses, so the two of them had been upstairs together for several minutes when our Saturday night became not normal. Well, that isn't really true. The fact that someone was hurt and bleeding is actually a pretty common occurrence. You know -- five rowdy boys and three eager to join sisters. It was the fact that it was Elyas who was shrieking which made it unusual.
He is one tough cookie. Elyas whacks his head, cries "Ow!" while rubbing the sore spot and then goes on about his toddling. He rarely cries and if he should be crying, it is usually over within seconds.
However, Elyas chose to take on the enameled bathtub with his teeth Saturday night and the tub most assuradly won. First Scott held him while he cried and bled a puddle onto Scott's shirt. He kept looking at me with huge, tear-filled eyes and then would bury his face back into Scott. Finally, he lifted his arms slightly in a very pathetic attempt to say, please mother, won't you hold me?
I was no better than Scott though at stemming the flow of weeps and wails. It just continued and continued and continued. Eventually, he went back to Scott who resumed his efforts to try to calm Elyas down. Nothing. Back to me he came. Scott had been pointing out family members in pictures with Elyas, usually a favorite activity, so I took over. Meanwhile, Scott went to put in a call to our dentist. We knew from our experience with other dental injuries that there wasn't much that could be done, but we were becoming concerned at the sheer amount of time he was continuing to cry. Of course, the bloody gums surrounding tiny teeth and an upper lip with a distinct similarity to a Who from Whoville look was also a little alarming.
Eventually, Elyas calmed down enough to weep the word football over and over. Behind our family pictures on the mantle is a signed photograph of Brian Dawkins from his Eagles days. There was simply no way for me to retrieve the picture one handed while continuing to comfort Elyas so he just kept crying and saying football.
The kids sprang into action bringing Elyas the large football he carries around during the day. No good. Then we remembered a smaller, Chuck-E Cheese football my brother had given him which had been played with continuously for weeks before it disappeared. A whole house hunt ensued until it was unearthed in the outside toy bin. By now we were sitting in the large rocking chair while Elyas clutched his little football continuing to cry and Scott had moved onto the pediatrician.
Still crying, but able to communicate a little more, Elyas could now cry the word football while pointing at the TV. It took a few moments for it to register that he was asking to watch football. Uh-oh. Saturday night, football season is practically over, and the one channel that might be helpful was playing old Super Bowl ads. Drat that NFL channel -- they are just good for nothing. And then I remembered the super-capacity TiVo which had several games recorded and deleted from the season. But our new TiVo means that shows aren't really deleted until the machine needs the space. And at 900 hours of recording time, I knew the deleted folder should be a gold mine of football games. Success!!!
We had the Eagles/Packers game on within moments and after almost an hour, Elyas's tears began to subside. He held his little football in one hand, pointed to the players with the other, and ow-ed as the tackels occurred. And then, just like magic, the ball crossed the end zone, Elyas joyfully yelled "Touchdown!" and his tears were officially over. He grinned as he continued to watch the game with the rest of the family.
Of course, both the dentist and the pediatrician told us there wasn't much we could do other than give him Motrin, which we did back at the beginning. Any bump in the general area of his mouth brought about an additional round of weeping and it wasn't until late Monday that he really seemed to be better. But we learned something in the process. The Super Bowl game is now safely burned on a DVD for later medicinal use.
For some of our children, Baby Einstein did the trick. For others it was Five little Ladybugs. For Elyas? Football.
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