If You're Gonna Juggle, You're Gonna Need Some Balls

I'm in Rumination Mode on my new spec idea, thinking out the characters, watching the story in my head, sensing what tone I want to take. I love the idea, so I'm enjoying this part of the process. Within the week, I'm hoping to take a few hours to hack out a rough prose version to give myself a spine to work from. The story involves a recently-married couple, so my recollections of what that was like the first year or so are fun to thumb through, I feel like I've got plenty of 'local color' with which to drape the story.

I'm feeling recharged somewhat, despite growing pressure at work. We're down a couple of people due to growth and the work has increased with the season. I'm also trying to do what I can to raise my profile, an opportunistic measure I'm ready to tackle. If I'm going to be putting in the hours, it would be foolish not to take advantage of the situation. What's responsible for my renewed energy is a three-day break with the family that included a trip to Sesame Place just before the Fourth. Say what you want about the tactic of stocking a theme park with characters no child can resist, then sprinkling the place with ample parental spending opportunities, but we had a blast. I came back sunburned across my Irish shoulders, wearing an acre of pink on my right arm like a badge of honor at work yesterday, a colleague pointing out my red skullcap late in the day. Aloe vera is my new mistress and I'll be wearing a hat and sunblock for extended periods out of doors from now on, you can bet.

We almost didn't make the trip. Last Friday, while I was watching The Prince in the morning before his sitter arrived, I stole away during a quiet Sesame Street moment to rinse my hands after sweeping up some breakfast debris. As I was turning off the faucet, I heard my son yelling from the living room and wondered if I'd just heard a thud of some sort. He's been yelly lately, the Terrible Two's making an early debut, his temperament sometimes flailing in extremes. His yell at first didn't startle me, yet I still moved quickly to find him. He came around a corner to the hallway, gearing up for a fresh yelp, crying. I didn't know what it was yet, but knew something was off.

I grabbed him up and sat down on the couch, feeling the back of his head, checking his knees and elbows for tenderness, trying to find a sign of impact from whatever had happened. I found nothing at first, and all the while he kept screaming. I wanted to make eye contact, so I turned his chin toward me.

There was now a huge drop of blood on his forehead. It hadn't been there when I picked him up, I knew that, and I tried to make sense of it as I could feel the panic rising. He was alert, his eyes were wide open, so I discounted at least immediate signs of concussion, but he wouldn't let me get a good look at the bloody spot, so I laid him back in my arms and I finally saw it. There was a gash, about a quarter-inch long and too deep not to be checked. Behind it was a rising bump, widening the gash. He more than likely banged his head on a radiator in the living room.

I called my wife back home from her commute and we had our doctor check it briefly before heading to the emergency room, thankfully light on traffic that early in the day. We lucked out further and only had to wait twenty minutes or so for the plastic surgeon to come in from her office. My wife left my son's eyeline as a doctor and I strapped him onto a backboard restraint, then I held my boy down as the plastic surgeon first injected a local and then closed the gash with three stitches. As soon as the surgeon applied some Dermabond over the stitches, we undid the straps and my wife swooped in to comfort him. He glared at me over her shoulder for a few moments, but eventually he let me hold him as he settled down to periodic deep sighing sobs.

I know it's inevitable that I'll see him hurt. In the days since last Friday, I've heard reassuring stories from friends detailing thrown rusty metal buckets, boards with nails, fireworks. I myself recall pilfering my older sister's grown-up bicycle for a ride only to fall off and split my right temple on the curb, healing up and stealing the bike again only to split my left temple on the curb just across the street from the first mishap. Kids get hurt. Watching my boy go through this minor ordeal nevertheless felt like torture. I look at him and feel that moment's neglect and it is killing me.

We didn't think we could go on Monday to the theme park. Since my wife came home that Friday, she had work on a deadline that had to be made up. Her friends at the office bundled it together and overnighted the work to her for Saturday so we could go on Monday. Thanks to them, I'm not still hearing The Prince's screams as I held him down, confused and in pain, for the surgeon to stick a needle through his perfect skin. Instead I'm hearing his joyful babbling as he watched The Count and Cookie Monster march past us, his hands clapping in excitement on the top of my head as I held him on my shoulders to see the Muppet Parade.