This morning, things were going along swimmingly at playgroup. The boys were getting along (for the most part) with their friends, and there hadn’t been any (major) incidents, except for Noah not wanting to share a giant shovel in the sandbox. Noah had just gotten back into the sandbox, when Caden (who was already in there) started screaming and crying. For anyone who knows Caden, this only happens when something serious has happened. My first instinct was to think Noah, with giant shovel in hand, had something to do with it. But when I got over there, I noticed some redness and some minor swelling occurring under Caden’s right eye. It seems he had fallen, face-first, into the corner seat of the wooden sandbox. Caden had just gotten his first shiner.
Not more than five minutes later, Noah, who had been happily zooming around on a toddler 3-wheeled scooter, started screaming and crying, holding his elbow as he sat on the driveway. It seems he had fallen and skinned his elbow. Not gushing, but a nice scrape that probably stung pretty bad when I ran the water on it. Based on his reaction, you’d think I had poured acid on it!
Based on these two accounts, you’d think Noah would recover more quickly than Caden. Well, again, for those of you familiar with my children, you can believe that it was Noah who whined and carried on much longer than Caden. Did we baby him more when he was Caden’s age? Do we just not have the time to comfort Caden like we did with Noah so he’s learned to self-soothe a little better? I suppose many of the times we should soothe Caden we’re busy getting Noah to apologize. Ah, the life with children!
As I was reading this, I totally thought you were going to say that Noah got his own shiner. If that had happened, you could have made up some story about the knock-down, drag-out fight they’d had.
Boys will be boys!