I haven't had this theory confirmed yet, but I truly believe that something about the mixture of my DNA with Amanda's leads to magnetism of the skull of our offspring. This is the only, true common sense reason that explains how both of our children are so prone to smashing their heads in to any hard or sharp object. Then again, maybe it's just my DNA. Let's discuss. Collectively, my boys have lived for about eight and a half years, yet they've managed to test the density of every object in our house.
We Nolan's are known for our melon-sized craniums. My head is giant. So big in fact that I can't peacefully rest my head on Amanda's stomach without her straining to seem polite, while gasping for life's last breath. That kid in Jerry Maguire was full of crap, my head weight passed eight pounds while I was still in diapers. When I joined the Coast Guard my first duty station was a buoy tender in North Carolina. Filled with pride and anticipation I reported eager to get to work. While being introduced to the rest of the crew, my introduction to the XO went something like this:
Me: "Good morning MK1, I'm Seaman Nolan, it's nice to meet you!"
XO: "Jesus Christ son, your head is gigantic. Hey Chief, if Nolan's is on the hose crew, we are going to have to order a bigger fire helmet."
Umm, that didn't quite go as planned. Apparently the size of my head had the ability to put the lives of the entire crew in danger. That's a new one. I can now indirectly kill people with my mere existence.
My boys are no different. While beautiful, they do appear to be trying to balance a bowling ball on a toothpick. At first, this was my conclusion over why they each had so many head injuries. Their poor little necks could no longer suffer the tasks God and dad had given them, and simply relented to the law of gravity. Two incidents really come to mind.
When Jackson was about 18 months old he was very active. He walked everywhere, climbed on anything near his height, and kept me in a heightened state of fear at all times. I recently described this age as the "hey dad, try to keep me from killing myself" stage of development. It's like they have a real intent to harm themselves, and are daring you to let it happen. One day our house was a buzz with Saturday afternoon energy. We'd gone to the store and picked up all the items needed for a nice spring bbq. As Amanda tended the required accoutrement I, like any manly man, was in charge of the grilling duties. I raised the blinds for the windows overlooking our back porch and used my Alton Brown approved chimney starter to get the charcoal going. During all the excitement Jackson rushed over to the windows to supervise dad's hard work. The window seal was about waist high for him, so he rested against it for the show. Noticing his intrigue over my grilling prowess, I flashed him a quick smile and a "hey little buddy." Something about this scene apparently caused his knees to complete give out, and with a faint smile he face-planted, scratch that, head-planted on to the edge of the window.
The whole world was silent for a split second as I rushed in to grab him, Amanda sprinted from the kitchen, and he took a breath sufficiently sized to scream at the appropriate, blood curdling volume. By the time he took his second breath a golf ball size lump surfaced on his forehead. Amanda and I stared at each other, and in a flash equally relayed our fear that we were not prepared for this moment. Nothing, in any parenting book or blog can prepare you for how to react to attempted suicide from a toddler. So we did the only thing we knew to do; we threw him in the car, barely buckled properly, and rushed him to the emergency room.
Apparently NOTHING gets you back to see an emergency room physician faster than a combination of the words "child" and "head injury." Good to know. They rush us back and a nurse is quickly at our side. We are treating Jackson with such fragility, so as not to further damage our little snowflake. This nurse walks in, jabs her fat thumb in to his skull, sighs, and casually walks out. A few minutes later, a tired ER doc walks in, checks Jackson's awareness and vision and walks out again. Amanda and I assume that he is surely fetching the appropriate law enforcement officials and a social worker. In reality, he was probably going to get a refill of coffee. After a while he returns and informs us that "out is good, in is bad." If the bump pokes out, give him some tylenol; if it dents in, congratulations, you broke a human. We quickly and quietly gather our things and head for the door, hoping no poor sap died in the waiting room while the poster model for new parents rushed to treat a booboo.
The next incident actually occurred in a hospital, a children's hospital. As many of you know, Jackson had really troublesome ears as a child. In total he's had seven surgeries to release pressure behind his ear drums. During the first, maybe even second surgery, Amanda and I were very tense and cautious. By number four, we were just tired of getting up at the crack of dawn and going through the whole presurgery rigamarole. So we may, just maybe, have gotten a little loose with the whole process. If your child hasn't gone through this awful process, let me drop some knowledge on you. They get your kid drunk. Not buzzed, or a little flighty. More like, shotgunned a fifth of tequila drunk. Apparently, falling down hammered is exactly what they are looking for to make sure your kid is cooperative enough for the IV. To us, this was comedic gold. So they give them a shot glass of "medicine" to grease the skids. In about fifteen minutes Jackson looks like any nineteen year old coed on karaoke night. He's slurring and stumbling, while maintaining a gigantic smile. He wants to hug and hold hands. What can I say, the kid's a lush.
While we are taking in the show, we somehow forget about the fact that balance + skull may quickly become an issue. For some unforeseen reason, maybe the wind, he gets a little off balance, and time slowed to a crawl as we see him stumble in slow motion, crossing the threshold of the door to our room, and slide forehead first on the carpet of the hall outside. As I rush to his aide I notice that all activity in the hallway had ground to a halt at the sight of this child's head bouncing repeatedly on the ground. I scoop him up, flash an unconcerned look, and rush back in to our room to survey the damage.
Like using silly putty to transpose a newspaper, he has a perfect patterned imprint of the carpet across the length of his head. Like an idiot, I spent the next ten minutes trying to somehow rub it off with my thumb. Thankfully, it wasn't permanent.
With all that said, I leave you with a quick story from my life that is most likely the real reason why my kids love to hurt themselves. It's my fault. I'm a klutz with too much energy. This story makes Amanda laugh harder than any other from my past.
When I was about ten years old, I rode my bike most everywhere. I logged tons of miles and it was rare that I was without it. However, one day in particular, I was on foot. When I think about growing up in the eighties, I'm continually amazed that I survived. We were pretty much cast out in to the world with no safety nets. Growing up in Purvis, Mississippi meant that I would have to deal with one very daunting obstacle everyday. Highway 11. Our town was bifurcated by a US highway that everyone used to travel back and forth to the nearest city, Hattiesburg. Unfortunately for me, my house sat on one side of the highway, while the rest of the town sat on the opposite side. This pretty much required me, at a young age, to cross a major highway many times a day.
On this one day, I prepared to cross the highway while cars were stopped at a traffic light in between a Sonic and a gas station. In true prisoner to imagination, Jamey-like, fashion I couldn't simply go in between cars while surveying oncoming traffic from the opposite lane and cross safely. Instead, I was transported to the Olympics, where I became the U.S.'s only hope at gold in the 100 meter sprint. I lined up, set my feet in the "blocks" of the gravel parking lot, and waited for the starting gun. The starting gun in this race, was represented by the car directly in front of me moving forward to create the gap between it and the jeep on it's bumper. I put one hand on the ground and stared up at my right. Just then I was given the green light, as the car shifted forward. My legs sprang in to action and I burst from them blocks.
One problem. The car hadn't shifted forward quite as much as I thought. Just as I raised my head to really hit my stride, my left cheek was rudely met by the rear quarter panel of a mid-eighties Oldsmobile. As my body bounced like a ping pong ball off the car, tumbling head over heels back in to the parking lot, I realized the gravity of my miscalculation. I just assaulted a 4000 pound car with an eighty-four pound human body. I lost.
My assault led to much concern from the drivers of the Oldsmobile and the Jeep. I can only imagine the scene they'd just witnessed. For no apparent reason, a four and a half foot tall kid just lined up for a race and headbutted a damn tank. They then witnessed my little body bouncing backward in defeat. Surely, I must've been "hopped up" on something. But in true tweaker fashion, just as they reached me to survey the damage, I jumped up like a terrified deer, muttered a terrified grunt, and sprinted across the highway. I don't think I stopped once until I reached home. I guess I thought I was in trouble, like I would be arrested for damaging that man's poor defenseless car. My embarrassments amaze even me.
Maybe that's the issue with my boys. Maybe they got a little too much of dad's tweaked out deer DNA. Hopefully, they are able to survive the bumps and bruises that my unfortunate influence has bestowed upon them. I know one thing; thank God Oldsmobile went out of business. At least they won't have to deal with that!
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