Teen in Triage

This weekend my second oldest, Elijah, turned 13. So I’m officially the mom of two teenagers and two more on the way.

*Moment of silence*

I talked him into holding off on the bash until we are moved in the new house so we’ll have a hundred-acre wood for the half-dozen boys to play in rather than my house that is currently in mid-moving shambles. He was down with that, thankfully. And if you think that sounds mean just know that he’s been a preacher’s kid his whole life so he figured out a long time ago that life isn’t often about what he wants. We celebrated Saturday by eating Mexican because we don’t do that often and we wanted the day to be special. However, Elijah did get to wear the cootie sombrero so the week may turn out to be special after all. I’ll let you know after I’ve combed through the nape of his neck three or ninety-seven times.

If he doesn’t develop the cooties, no worries, because he got a trip to the ER Sunday night. Apparently he had taken a break from playing guitar long enough to fool around with one of his knives in the ever-growing arsenal and somehow manage to cut his left pointer finger as close to the bone as it can get. He came into the kitchen and said, “Mom, I’ve cut my finger. I’m so sorry, but it’s pretty bad.” I wasn’t sure why he apologized until he uncovered it and I won’t give you the gory details but let’s just say he wasn’t lying. He got a little freaked the more he looked at it so I looked deep into his eyes and used my Jedi powers to tell him he would not panic or cry because he was strong, the word of God abides in Him and He could overcome the evil one. Okay, I didn’t say all of that but I totally would have if I had thought of it then.

At this point I called Luke who was at the store buying bread and milk for our regular Sunday night grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup fest. He rushed home and we dashed out for what was sure to be a long night in the local hospital. And why is it that kids always seem to cut their fingers off or spike a temp 20 minutes after the doc in the box closes up for the night? We arrived in the waiting room along with the greater North Alabama population but for some reason we were ushered right past the crowd into a room. Maybe because there was blood involved? It’s hard to say but I was grateful all the same. Except not for the ER copay. Not grateful for that. I’m thinking birthday boy may be pitching in on that one.

What little time we had to wait before he got five big stitches, Elijah was taking nasty pictures of his finger and texting it to all his friends. Being a boy mom for 15 years has warped me which is the only explanation I have for why I decided that would be a fun thing to do also. I quickly learned bloody finger pictures aren’t met with as much enthusiasm by grown women as they are pubescent boys. So, I decided to behave and Twitter instead which went badly. A tip here: if your phone has auto-spell check you should always, ALWAYS, proof your tweets before hitting send. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

So we are back home after only 2 hours and I debated getting on the computer because I’ve been serious about this no-media-after-9 thing. But since it’s after midnight, I’m technically into a new day so I decided to purge while I felt like it. Having this past week off from school has gotten me interested in this blogging thing. I think I may try it for a while.

This is the part where I should say some sickeningly sweet things about the joy of being Elijah’s mom. I want you to look at this darlin’ face, assume all the wonderful things a mom would say about a kid who makes her laugh her head off every single day of her life, and interject those things here. Because rather than write about how crazy I am about this kid, I’m going to cuddle up on the couch with him instead.

We’ve got a finger to nurse back to health.