Trying to get "ahead" in life

Two head injury incidents came to light yesterday. Both were for my oldest son John who has had at least 3 rounds of stitches on his face/head (that I can remember--I feel like I'm still missing one). I had brothers growing up, but that sure did not prepare me for being the mom of a son who tends to be a touch accident-prone.

Imagine my surprise as I sat at Panera yesterday having lunch with a friend. My phone rang and it was the YMCA. Thinking I had left something there (I had just left the Y 30 minutes before), I answered and it was the children's program director calling to find out how John's head was. You see, apparently, he bumped it pretty hard the WEEK BEFORE (as in 7 days prior to this phone call) and she was just following up from the incident report they'd filed to find out how he was doing. WHAT?!? News to me. Obviously, I told her, he was doing just fine.

So, onto incident #2. Maddy was looking out the front door waiting for John's bus when she suddenly declared "There are two busses on our street! One of them is driving up to our house!" (It was all very exciting.) Well, John was on the bus coming to our house and he was the ONLY kid on that bus. The other bus carried the rest of the students that normally ride with him.

The thought going through my head was that this was either really really good (perhaps a good behavior perk is to have your own private bus? No? Didn't think so) or this was really really bad (a fight? an injury?). Yes, that's more like it.

So, the bus driver and John came up to the house and she explained that he had an accident on the bus by falling out of his seat and cut his head on a piece of metal ON THE FLOOR. He is holding a bloody paper towel on his head and he is obviously shaken up. Bus driver felt terrible, our neighbors are there to check it out, and Maddy in a sudden attempt to gain some attention declares that her head hurts too. Thankfully, Will was napping or it would've been a total circus!

[As to why he was on his own bus? Best I can figure out is if someone is bleeding, they have to clear the entire bus...maybe? I don't know for sure. He said the bus driver was planning to take him back to school to fill out the report, etc, but he wanted to come home and "see my mom." Awww.....melts my heart! No matter how old he gets, he still wants his mom!]

My mother in law, the RN, (everybody needs a nurse in their family, you know?) came over and checked it out to determine that he didn't need a stitch.

Yeah for that! He was ok at this point, but I could tell he was still feeling some anxiety about the whole ordeal.

Our sweet friends & neighbors came over to check on him later with a homemade "Go Vandy!" sign and a Snickers for John (and some Smarties for Maddy who declared they gave that to her because she has asthma.) That definitely cheered him up.

So far, so good today--we're incident free!