~Band-Aids and Children~

My grandson Kelly was over last night and he had a moo-boo. I know, it’s a boo-boo, but he’s three.  It’s on his foot and was slightly infected – isn't that the norm for a kid? I think so. Anyway, I asked Daniy his mom about it and she said she washes it every night when he takes a bath, but he won’t let her fix it.  So I asked him if I could.  He gave me a very positive yes.

Now…I don’t know how it is at your house but mine is a grandma’s house.  I have every character Band Aid known to man and children kind.  For the girls I have Hello Kitty, Barbie, Dora, and all the other girly ones, even a pink camouflage.  For the boys, I have GI Joe, Lighting McQueen, SpongeBob, and green camouflage.  I should have bought into the stock when my first child told me they were expecting.   

I go to my bathroom and pull out all the things I might need for any sort of contingency – short of open heart surgery.  I have a…okay, I have a large bag of tricks, Neosporin, peroxide, cotton balls, tape, scissors, and of course the burny stuff. (I’ve never actually used this on my grandchildren, but it gives my kids something to tell their kids about.  And no, no matter how many times they tell it, I did not pour it into open wounds just to hear them scream.)

While Kelly is telling me how he’s lost his narbles, (did I mention he’s three?) and he can’t find them, I clean his cut. It’s not really that bad, just a small cut on the side of his tiny toe.  After assuring him that the peroxide won’t hurt and that it will actually be cool, he lets me do my thing.  By the time his Uncle is finished telling him that Grandma has lost her narbles a long time ago and that he still loves me, I’m ready to put the Neosporin on the cut.  Paul may need the bigger bag of tricks later.

Kelly now has the task of picking out the perfect cover for his major wound.  He has to look through the boxes – all of them and see the brightly colored latex. He cannot just see what he could pull out of the box by looking at the cover, no he dumps them out.  One by one he discards different styles until he settles on a dark green camouflage one that is, while too big, will do the trick.  And, he explains, he needs yape (tape).  “It won’t falled off, grandma,” he tells me in his way too superior voice. 

I was finished in record time. The entire process from cleaning to yapeing (taping) only took an hour.  He was very happy and with a bribe of chocolate chip cookies, he promised to leave it on until he got home.  I was pleased with my doctor duties and so apparently was Kelly.  He ‘allowed’ me to doctor three more of his moo-boos that he found.  Okay, two were scars and one of them was a freckle, but he was happy and today when I saw him, he still had the yape on his foot.  Mark one up for Doctor Grandma.