One minor glitch...

Ok - so we had one minor glitch in our "Best Day Ever". It came at the very end of Meet the Teacher night. We had been walking around all three campuses for the 3 hours. We were hot, tired and the kids were finding new ways to entertain themselves after behaving really well - in the presence of the teachers...

Between the Jr. high campus and Intermediate school campus (where we parked) is the track/football stadium. Gabriel and I were walking along discussing 7th grade and all the fun things he was anticipating - Katrina, Abagail, Simon and Oliver were hiding behind advertising signs that hang on the other side of the fence around the track. They would jump out occasionally and say "Boo! Did we scare you?"

As we reached the end of the fence I heard Simon begin to scream. He was jumping around, but in the twilight and through the fence I couldn't see what was wrong. Katrina yelled that Simon had a bloody nose. Now, Simon often gets bloody noses and they bleed ALOT. In his panic, Simon was trying to climb over the fence to get out to where I was. (Panic, because even though this happens often, Simon still panics at the sight of the blood.) I finally got him to calm down and turn around so he could go through the gate.

When I saw him he was COVERED in blood. It was all down both arms, hands completely covered, it was dripping down his nose, all around his mouth and running down the front of his neck. His shirt had a big patch of blood on it. He had apparently tried to blow the blood out of his mouth as he even had splatters on his forehead and hair. He looked terrible. I gave him a wet wipe - the only thing I had - to help catch the blood, not clean him up - I didn't have enough wipes for that. Then Gabriel, my boy scout with first aid training, explained how Simon should and should NOT try to stop the blood. Gabe was right on too, I was so proud.

I decided to go into the Intermediate school cafeteria and try to wash Simon up in the bathroom before heading home. They were just closing up from the night's activities. A staff member I knew approached us with a big smile and began saying something about Amelia. The staff member caught sight of Simon - and he was a sight to behold. She stopped mid-word, her mouth dropped open and her eyes got wide...she had a horrified look on her face. I hastily passed Amelia to Gabe and said a word or two about "bloody nose" and hustled Simon to the bathroom. After all, I really didn't want to freak anyone else out or drop blood on the floor.

Everything got all cleaned up. No harm done. Not even a really big deal - it just looked bad.

I didn't realize until I was relating the story to my mom later that the staff member who had frozen at the sight of Simon covered in blood was the school nurse. - I guess I'll have to tease her about that when I see her next.