What You Never Forget About Being A Parent

What you never forget? How things can change in a split second.

Your kids grow up. They have kids of their own. And the grandkids are fine one minute. And the next minute one is on her way to the emergency room.

Just like that.

There we were at dinner, just finishing up when Ellie decided she was done.

Kicked her feet out. Shoved against the table. Tipped herself right over backwards and we all watched in horror as she and the chair nailed the hardwood floor at a rate of knots.

You know how kids sometimes don't cry because it hurts so much they are gearing up to split everyone's eardrums in three counties. That's pretty much the way it was -- dead silence as her dad snatched her up -- and then came the shriek.

And then the blood.

Concussions are one thing. A bad thing. Blood along with concussions is worse.

It makes everything so much more -- red.

And obviously urgent.

So we left Henry and his mother at home -- Henry colicky and his mother beyond anxious -- and were on our way into town to the ER in less than a minute. We arrived no doubt faster than the speed limits allow.

Ellie was a trooper even though we spent three hours there. She hung onto her dad while she got the lay of the land. Then we all read books and looked at the pictures on the ceiling (good idea, that) and waited. They were doing a land office business in the ER tonight.

Ellie endured. She pretty much only screamed when someone was trying to do something dire to her -- like put staples in her head.

In the end, they gave her three stickers which she loved, a headband to keep the leaking blood off the sheets, which lasted, um, until we got to the door of the hospital, and then we drove home through a rainstorm that turned to a snowstorm as we got closer to the foothills. Glad my son was driving.

Now she has gone to bed and is due to be awakened every couple of hours tonight by her mom who said, "Of course I'm going to do it. I won't be able to sleep anyway."

How well I remember. It comes right back.

So while we are waiting, I am writing my scheduled bit of Demetrios because I can't sleep either.

There's nothing like a bit of adrenaline to focus the mind. I remember that, too.