March 20 – “Three Little Monkeys”

We have had some grandkid injuries over the past few weeks.  Cailyn’s happened first.  She and her parents were just entering a friend’s house.  Cailyn of course wanted to be in on whatever action she could find or make up on her own, so she ran ahead.  Unfortunately she discovered a glitch in her path, a bump in her road, a seam in the tile, something that caused her to get tripped up.  She fell and landed with a smash on her chin.  The resulting gash was significant enough to take her to the emergency room.  She didn’t get stitches, but they did use that miracle medical super glue to hold it together while it heals.  There have been a few residual effects with sore teeth, which will mean a trip to the dentist to get checked out, but all in all she has been a real trooper.

The second incident occurred in the obscurity of Kel and Christina’s bedroom.  From the other room Mom suddenly heard a cry – one of those distinctive, Mommy immediately knows something is wrong kind of cries – followed by fast-talking words of concern from older brothers, “Are you OK, Buddy?”  and “Oh, man.  That’s blood.”   Christina rushed in to find Josiah with blood all over his face, certainly one of the scariest sights ever for a parent.  Kind of like the scare I gave my Mom back in the day when I pulled a basketball backboard down on top of my face.  They lost count of all the stitches I had to have.  Explains a lot about my outward ugliness, doesn’t it?  Christina got him cleaned up and finally located the source of the bleeding.  His eyelid had a gash in it.  Meanwhile Kel began the requisite parental detective work.  Josiah was doing his best to communicate what had happened to him.  The best they could make out was something that sounded like “Jachin punched me,” and with three boys horsing around it could certainly have happened.  So Kel put on his best stern Daddy face and went in to confront the other two boys.  Fortunately he didn’t rush in with guns a’blazin’.  He decided to listen to their side of the story first.  Good move, Dad.  Seems the three boys had discovered a really fun new game that could only be played effectively in Mom and Dad’s bed.  One of them would sit quietly on the bed.  The other one (or sometimes two, I’m sure, because that would be really fun … er, that could have been … er … moving right along) … the other one would jump off any other convenient, adjacent furniture and land with as much force as possible on the other side of the bed.  Now at this point I suppose it is important to interject that Kel and Christina apparently do not have one of those new-fangled beds that allow one person to sleep soundly while the other tosses and turns.  You’ve seen the commercials.  The lady jumps up and down while the glass full of wine sits undisturbed.  So in the absence of such technology, when the jumper hits the bed surface, it transfers the force to the other side and shoots the one sitting quietly into the air.  See, I told you it sounded really fun.  The injury occurred when Josiah was the sitter and big brother Jachin was the jumper.  Lots of force involved there.  Josiah had been launched into the air and off the bed and his eyelid had been cut on impact with the ground.  With a picture of what had happened, and with the actual words of the older culprits, they realized what Josiah had actually been saying.  It was not “Jachin punched me.”  Instead it was “Jachin launched me.”  Indeed he did, Little Man.  Christina ended up taking him up to Texas Children’s Hospital to have it looked at, and after a four hour wait he was declared good to go.  Nothing they could do or really needed to do apparently, other than let it heal.  Well, maybe a quick stop at McDonald’s for a Happy Meal and maybe a rousing rendition of a popular children’s ditty.  How about this one? …

“Three little monkeys, jumping on the bed. 

One fell off and bumped his head. 
Momma called the doctor, and the doctor said,
‘No more jumping on the bed.’”

Psalms 72:18-19 says, “Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds.  Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.  Amen and Amen.”

 

Father, heal those bumps and bruises and cuts quickly so they can get started on the next round.  Amen.