Damp washcloth, stat

It’s unfortunate that some of the moments you’d most like to have captured on video can never be, simply because of the circumstances.  Often a more immediate need (like, oh, stopping the bleeding) must take precedence.

I stayed home from work yesterday.  Woke up, felt like I’d been through a combine, emailed that I’d be late, went back to bed for an hour, woke up again, felt like I’d been through the combine again, emailed that I’d be absent.  Low grade fever, fatigue, some respiratory symptoms, the bed, a bowl of Froot Loops, and a lot of Seinfeld DVDs.  We’ve all got crud of some kind or another right now, actually.  It’s a pathogenic extravaganza.

We had previously planned for Lea to go on a solo junket last night.  She asked if I felt up to watching the boys, I said yes, so she left.

They came to see me from time to time.  I could hear them fine, and I put my eyeballs on them every ten minutes or so.  They were playing nicely, which I appreciated.

Then Nathan ran in our bedroom and said “Daddy, Aaron’s nose is bleeding!”

This is not surprising.  Aaron doesn’t get a lot of nosebleeds, but he definitely gets more of them than Nathan ever has, particularly when he’s sick.  “Aaron, come here!” I called.

He came cheerily ambling in.  “Hi, Daddy!”

Oh, wow.  He looked like he’d run full speed into a wall, face first.  Ear to ear and forehead to chin, his little face was absolutely covered with blood.  It was a good gusher, and he’d been absently wiping his nose for three or four minutes, anyway.  Why didn’t he notice the blood on his hands?  The singular focus of a three-year-old lost in his Legos is a powerful thing.

Calmly, I said, “Aaron, come to the bathroom with Daddy.”

“Why?”

“Because your nose is bleeding.”

And then, blinking his blood-encrusted eyelashes at me, flashing me his you’re-so-silly smile (stark white against a crimson sea), and in a genuinely sunny and almost laughing voice, he said one of the funniest things he’s ever said to me:  “My nose isn’t bleeding, Daddy!”

Heh.

Cleaned him up, stopped the bleeding, and added a hilarious memory to my stack.

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