Taking A Stand: Some lessons are difficult to learn
You’d think that cracking one’s gourd open would teach them a lesson, and perhaps they wouldn’t do the same thing again. But then, when it comes to kids, they are quite insane.
When I was a little kid, I did what many kids do, and I grabbed a hot stove eye and burned my hand. From that day forward, I never grabbed another stove eye, on purpose that is, because I equated that action with pain. Naturally, I assumed the rule would translate on down to my 5-year-old son since pain, in my book, seems to be a great deterrent against doing silly things.
So, the wife and I are sitting in the downstairs portion of our house last week just minding our own business, enjoying a regular night of doing nothing. Upstairs there’s the squeak of bed springs emanating from our room, something that we’ve grown accustomed to in recent years. Normally, when we hear the sound of bed springs, we yell up something to the effect, “Jack, stop jumping on the bed.”
It seems our son doesn’t know the difference between a trampoline and a bed. It’s a big thing with him to climb on our bed upstairs and act like a wrestler or boxer. Unless we chase him off the bed using threats, his bouncing up there is a nightly ordeal.
We’ve warned him many times about the dangers of jumping on the bed since those hardwood floors come up quick if you bounce off. We’ve tried yelling, punishing and about everything to keep him from jumping on the bed, but nothing seems to work. My wife has even told the story, countless times, about the time she was jumping on the bed and fell off, breaking her collar bone. Of course, this injury occurred before we were married since I don’t allow her to jump on the bed anymore.
So anyway, I hear the familiar sound of springs bouncing upstairs and I’m about to yell out the same old warning, when all of a sudden, boom, like a clap of thunder, I hear something thud on the upstairs floor. I wait anxiously as there’s a couple of seconds of silence while the shock sinks into Jack that he’s just slammed into the floor. I also wait to hear the tone of the crying, since, as most parents know, you can tell how bad a kid is hurt by the intensity of their crying.
Well, this obviously was a bad one as he lets go with a blood-curdling scream and panicked crying, sending both of us scampering up the stairs. We’re greeted at the edge of the stairs with Jack clutching the back of his head. He removes his hand and sees a crimson coating on it, which obviously sends him into a huge panic since he’s never been busted open like that before.
It’s times like this I’m glad I’m married to a nurse. Well, actually she graduated from nursing school Saturday (yehaw), three days after the accident, but that was close enough.
Seems Jack lacerated the back of his head, leaving a good inch-long gash. The incident landed him in the emergency room minutes later where they glued his head back together, gave him a lollipop and sent him home with a hospital bill for his parents.
Thus, the point of my ramblings here. You’d think cracking open his head would be a lesson, especially when we used the incident to re-instill the dangers of jumping on the bed. I actually thought this would be the end of his jumping on the bed.
So, what do I hear Sunday night? Yep, the familiar sound of bed springs, going even more intensely than before.
“Are you insane?” I yell at my son as I catch him jumping on the bed, my brain vein about to pop.
His answer, in plain fashion, “Don’t worry Dad. My head’s not bleeding.”
Arrrggghhh.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)