So for the second year in a row, February has tried to murder one of my children. It all started on February 13, 2018 with a loud crash coming from the boys room shortly after bed time. I’ve never leapt up an entire flight of stairs before so that was pretty cool. The kids, however, were not so cool.
I pick up the little one so I could inspect the bigger one who had just fallen out of the top bunk. He had a bloody nose, but seemed ok. I then tried to set the little one down so that I could check him out. As a parent, you sometimes know when something is really bad and I was getting that feeling so I laid him on the changing table and started doing a legit medical assessment. It’s been a decade since I’ve done this shit, but hey, I guess it’s like riding a bike. I knew within a minute that my beautiful baby boy’s leg was broken and it was broken badly. Doctors call the sound of bones grinding together “crepitus.” They call it this because “bones grinding together” is a motherfucking gross descriptor so they gave it a stupid code word. As I poked and gently squeezed from his head to his toes I heard and felt that grinding. His leg was definitely broken and it was a helpless and terrible feeling. On the bright side, my on site medical assessment proved to be dead on once he got to the hospital. Dad was right. No surprise there (said everyone).
Dads can ugly cry, too. Not that I would ever do that, but if I did, it’d be after seeing my son’s x-ray. (I did)
If you’re wondering what happened, the older brother was leaning over the top of the bunk bed trying to tell his little brother to get back into bed. He lost his balance and fell right on top of his brother. That’s 50 pounds of toddler falling from a height of 5-6 feet onto a squishy younger toddler. Don’t buy fucking bunk beds for your young children. The boy could have been seriously hurt had the baby not broken his brother’s fall by sacrificing his femur and 4 months of mobility. Fuck bunk beds and fuck February.
Fast forward a year and February strikes again. We all know that hardwood floors and socks don’t mix well and hardwoods with a five year old in socks is a disaster waiting to happen. This was proven when the oldest was running in his new house that is not mine and slipped on the stairs. With a good bit of sugar fueled momentum, the boy bit down hard on the lip of the steps. Luckily he had his tongue to cushion his teeth. Unluckily, he nearly bit through it.
This was after it had a few days to heal so you can probably imagine how it looked with blood shooting out of it.
Dentists are awesome now. An x-ray showed that they needed to pull the boys two front teeth which they did with the aid of a therapy dog and a lot of drugs. The boy was a god damn rock star and handled the extraction like a veteran NHL brawler. I wasn’t with him when it happened, but he called me on the way to urgent care. To try and make him feel better, I told him that the tongue healed faster than any other part of the body. Between 2 and 35 other licensed doctors and nurses went on to tell him the same thing so score another medical victory for Dad. Recovery time for this was about a week and has left him with a cute smile and a cuter lisp. He was so brave. His words, not mine.
So that’s it. February has tried twice now to murder my children and they’re still here. I’ve started to really like my kids and I’m glad they’ve proven to be so resilient. Even still, I’d appreciate it if February would cut it the fuck out. Just because you’re the dumbest month doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the rest of us. So yeah, suck it, February and bring it on next year. Better yet, don’t. These co-pays are fucking killing me.
Happy and healthy. No thanks to stupid ass February.