black eye smiles
this morning while i was getting ready for work, i heard my son and husband wrestling in the bedroom. lots of giggling and rustling going on, which eventually got drowned out by the shower.
when i was getting out of the shower, the match was still going on, so i issued a couple directives to matthew to get dressed for school and make his bed. that’s when i heard the ‘thunk’ followed by the ominous silence of a windup cry.
now, you have to understand matthew rarely cries when he gets hurt. when he does, it has always been for a really, really good reason. so i hustled over to see what happened. greg was comforting him and told me that matthew hid slipped over his chest and thunked his head on the bed platform.
as he wasn’t holding the ‘owie’ spot anywhere, i thought he was fine and had moved on to the ‘i’m crying for sympathy’. so i rubbed his back a little, and told him to shake a leg. he came into the bathroom all smiles and was going to brush his teeth while i was doing my makeup.
as we chatted about ‘casual day’ at school, he turned his face, and, to my horror, there was a big, red, ‘C’ around the outer part of his left eye–’you have a shiner!’ i said.
big grin. ‘what’s a shiner?’, he says…
i tell him, ‘a shiner is a black eye–it’s a brui—–’ ‘YAY! i have a shiner, i have a shiner!’ song and dance routine.
i worried about what questions would be asked at school–but as i watched him celebrate the newness of the shiner, i realized he considers it a badge of honor on the field of daddy combat.