My four year old has figured out how to charm the women-folk apparently.  This discovery happened at our local emergency room last night.

As we were worked on our floors yesterday (let me clarify – as my husband worked and I supervised), G somehow fell off the chair and hit his head.  He ran to me, I felt his head and felt nothing, so comforted him and sent him on his way.

I then ran a couple of errands for Chris.  (My supervisory role is demanding that way.)  When I finally returned home to stay a couple of hours later, I noticed blood on the couch and immediately checked G’s head.  Yup, a nice lump that was still bleeding.  A quick call to the ped’s office revealed that they had already taken their last patient for the day and they advised me to take him to the ER.

I knew everything would be fine, but better safe than sorry.  (No vomiting, no passing out, no wierd behavior other than being a four-year-old boy…)  I dreaded the drama that comes when you try to take care of his boo-boos.  He screams the house down.  I was imagining the army of medical personnel who would be called to restrain a writhing four year old boy just so they could clean up his head wound.

We are fortunate to live close to a modern and new (ie paperless, how cool is that?) ER and I braced myself for the onslaught of  cold and flu germs living there and walked in.  G turned on the sniffles and shaky chin and random tear down the cheek as I checked him in.  We got our cool blue matching ID bracelets and were called into triage a couple of minutes later.

And boy did he work it.  More quivering chin, random tear, hiccup.  Very sad face.  She’d ask a question and he’d look down with the saddest face in all creation and s….l….o….w….l…y  shake his head no.  Or Yes.  Or “Does it hurt a little or a lot?”  He’d look up and sniff and say in a little voice, “A lot.”

She let us know how long it would be before we’d probably be called (not long) and I asked G to tell her “thank you.”  He sadly shook his head “no.”  Slowly, sadly, dramatically.

A head injury is the only time I’ll let him get away with that!

We headed back out to the main waiting room where he sat right down and made himself content at one of those play tables with the maddening wood beads and metals tubes that go nowhere and everywhere all at the same time.  Soon enough his name was called, and mommy and son with the oh-so-cool matching blue bracelets (G thought it was a crime that mommy’s wasn’t purple) headed back to the Express Care section of the ER with John, the tech/nurse (I don’t remember his credentials).

G was all seriousness and smiles.  Tears were gone.

Huh? Had anyone seen my son?  The dramatic one?

He sat right down on the bed and pointed out yet another television in this fascinating place full of televisions.  John came right back in with the right stuff to wash out the mess on the back of his head…

…and G never budged.  Or cried.  He chattered away about bumping his head and the color of the shirt to the color of the towel (because we have different colors at home, you know).  Then the doctor-with-zero-bedside-manner came in and took a look at G’s head and poked and prodded and squeezed – goodness, my head was hurting after all that!  G was stellar – he never once complained.

I was a proud mommy.  A stunned mommy, but a proud mommy.

The doctor-with-no-smile then decided to glue his little wound so it would stop bleeding then we could be on our way.  I told G that it would be kind of like glueing his homework, which we had done that afternoon. G then launches into a whole new dialogue about the letter “F” (our homework from that day) to the doctor-with-no-kid-conversation-skills and Mommy served as a pseudo-translator and conversation partner.

With the glue firmly stuck in place, we paid and headed home, but we made the obligatory ice cream stop first.

This mommy is now wise to this kid’s charm with the ladies.  Watch out world.

Growing Up