Cuts Like a Knife

We were Father's Day shopping at Academy, and Keaton found the pocket knives. He had asked for a pocket knife for his birthday, but I forgot. Don't feel bad for him. We celebrated like 47 times over the course of a week and a half and he got lots of gifts. He'll recover from no pocket knife.

However, at Academy he found them, and he's got money. This is because he only likes to spend our money and saves all of his. He's sort of rich for an eight year old. So, when he asked to spend his own money on a pocket knife I gave him the only appropriate answer -- "I'll talk to Dad."

Academy was a zoo, so I wasn't even sure where Trey was, and in the ten minutes it took me to find him Keaton asked me about one hundred thousand more times if he could get a pocket knife. When I finally found Trey, I just told him, "I'm about to let your son spend his own money on a pocket knife." Whatever. He's eight. Let him make his own decisions about weapons.

I think Trey responded with a shrug, Keaton got the knife, and we escaped the seventh level of hell Academy.

This knife thing sounds very easy (for Keaton, anyway), but in the midst of it all Tucker got really, really upset. You see, about a month ago, Tucker dropped his ipad face first onto concrete and shattered the screen. Shattered. Sometimes Tucker is careless with things, but in this case it was truly, seriously an accident. He was crushed. It also happened right during the time that he was leaving elementary school, one of his best friends was moving away, and I was changing jobs. It was a stressful time for a ten year old boy, and then his ipad crashed and burned. I wanted to cry for him.

There is a place in town that could fix it in two hours (Sour Apple Repair -- they were awesome and will solve your ipad/iphone screen problems). It was expensive, though. More than Tucker had saved up.

So Trey and and I talked. I didn't want to rescue him. It was a life lesson in the making. But I wanted his ipad fixed. So we made a deal.

We told him we'd pay half, but he had to give us every cent he had until it was paid off. He was happy to oblige - he wanted that thing fixed more than I did. I started by taking his $47, and then his allowance every week. He also started picking up little jobs around the house for extra money -- washing windows and planting flowers. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen Tucker work so hard doing chores. It was pretty impressive and not terribly painful for him.

Until Keaton found the pocket knife.

And Tucker still owed us eleven bucks.

It almost got ugly in Academy, but Tucker asked if I would take him to the car, and I did. It got ugly there, but it was just us, so no big deal. It was a life lesson -- this is why it's no fun to owe money. Because you'd like to buy something, but you can't because you still have a loan to pay off. I encouraged him to learn now that it sucks.

Back to the knife. Keaton owned it about two hours before there was blood.

Trey and I were both in the kitchen cooking for Father's Day brunch tomorrow - him frying bacon and me making cinnamon roll cupcakes -- when Tucker came running into the room.

"BLOOD!  Keaton is bleeding!!  He's trying to come in here but he's dripping blood everywhere!  It's all over the floor!  BLOOD!"

Keaton came walking hurriedly around the corner, holding his finger and looking decidedly scared/in pain. "I wasn't doing anything!  It just cut me. I wasn't doing anything!"

I knew immediately that he was pretty sure he was in big bad nasty trouble.

"Keaton," I said, "you are not in trouble when you're bleeding. You might be in trouble later, but while you're bleeding you are not in trouble. Let me see."

Only I couldn't see because of all the blood. It was pouring out of his finger. Pouring, I tell you!  I grabbed a paper towel and squeezed. Check the wound. Still too much blood. Squeeze some more. Repeat. Blood. Blood. Blood.

Finally, I decided that the drips were drying on my floor, so I showed Keaton how to hold pressure and raise his hand above his heart and grabbed my cleaner and a paper towel.

I should mention here that Trey never, ever stopped frying bacon. Never. When I said under my breath (so as not to alarm the child bleeding out in my kitchen), "There sure is a lot of blood. You might want to look at this," he actually put more bacon in the skillet.

Keaton may have a future as a medical professional because once I cleaned up the floor and checked the wound, I could actually see it. There was a good bit of flesh showing, but it was a clean cut and on the joint, so I decided that some stitches tonight were probably not essential. I asked Trey to concur, so he said, "Keaton, come over here," and he glanced at it while flipping bacon. We decided if it was still bleeding tomorrow, maybe we would seek medical attention. The kid's probably got lots of blood, right? At least twelve hours worth until Urgent Care opens in the morning.

I put on the tightest band aid I could and instructed him to stay off the furniture until we were sure the blood wasn't going to seep through the band aid. Without me even asking, Safety Man Tucker delivered the evil pocket knife to me. We had a quick conversation with Keaton about only using the knife with permission, and he went on about his furniture-less merry way.

About an hour later Keaton came in from playing outside because blood was coming out of the band aid, and Trey suggested he should think about staying inside for a little while. He said, "Nah. It doesn't even really hurt anymore." I guess it was bleeding less profusely than before, so it was probably time to get a little dirt in it.

And so, two life milestones in one afternoon...Keaton's first pocket knife and Keaton's first time to cut himself with a pocket knife. He seems to have lived, so I hope the memory he has is of pain instead of recovering quickly so that he will be a little more careful next time. But let's be honest. He's probably whittling a clubhouse out of our coffee table right now.

Remember the Mediocre Mommy?  I think she's back.