I was standing around the hallways of my kids' elementary school, waiting with other parents to drive for a 4th grade field trip. John, the 3-year-old, was wildly running about the feet of the adults. As he bent over to enthusiastically demonstrate somersaults to another mom, she noticed the two large abrasions on his lower back.
"Oh, what happened, honey?" she cooed in a concerned tone. I looked over, surprised. Huh. Never seen those before. John was staring at her and not answering, so I had to jump in.
I tried to sound cool and offhand as I asked John about them. I didn't want to make it too obvious that I had no previous awareness of a significant-looking injury to my preschooler. (Now let me be clear - he wasn't oozing blood or anything. In fact, it appeared the marks were starting to scab over already. And obviously, they weren't bothering John since he hadn't mentioned them to me. But, I didn't want to look like the incompetent mother of a too-large brood, unable to keep her kids safe let alone in matching clothes.) "Oh, John, did you bump into something at preschool?" ("That should work," I was thinking to myself. After all, I can't be responsible for not knowing about injuries happening on someone else's watch, right? And besides, these new marks were right on top of the still visible scars from the injury a few months ago that was in preschool, so not so far fetched.)
John came right to my rescue, of course. "No, Mom! That is from when Daddy threw me up against the couch."
The floor shook with the collective dropping of the jaws of the other moms there as they turned to stare at me. Not much for me to say at that point.
No comments:
Post a Comment