Trying to Keep My Kid Alive, Part I

As the oldest of 5 kids and a master babysitter, I used to think I was pretty prepared for the dramas of keeping a child alive.

Then I got a kid.

I remember the first time Little Bug got a high fever. Appa was out of town and I looked at that 103.5 on the thermometer and just froze. I second guessed all the actions I should take that ran through my head, which sadly, were very few. It took a late night house call by Jeff's aunt and a call to the pediatrician to convince me that Little Bug was probably going to be okay.

Things like that happen all the time now. I think I've got a handle of the parenthood thing and then something happens that leaves Appa and I momentarily staring at each other with that wide-eyed looked, like "Holy crap, what the hell are we supposed to do about THAT?"

You know, like this morning when Little Bug decided to have glass for breakfast.

Now, we don't have glass lying around as a pre-breakfast snack option, but apparently there was a bit of glass from an accident a few weeks back that had somehow managed to hide. Until my 2 year old found it with his "naughty radar." (PLEASE don't think we intentionally leave glass shards laying around.)

So, that is how we started our morning. I was making lunch while Little Bug munched happily on some cheerios and played with his toys when he started crunching on something a little more violently. It took another crunch or two before Appa and I had that moment of eye contact where we both looked at each other and realized something was not right.

Yeah, try the blood coming out of my kid's mouth. That constitutes "not right."

So we sprang into action, sweeping his mouth and trying to rinse it out. He had a cut on the side of his lip and we managed to get a small chunk of the glass out, but we honestly don't know how much, if any, he ingested.

Then our novice parenting kicked in. What does one do when your kid might have ingested glass? I'm envisioning his innards slowly ripping apart, and Appa is envisioning violent puking episodes. We stood there in our kitchen staring at each other, late for work and trying to figure out what to do for our son, who was pissed that he was out of cheerios.

Ultimately, after consulting our books and some online medical items (our pediatrician was not open yet), we decided to let his school know to watch for certain symptoms and call me immediately should anything seem amiss.

So there it is. Another humbling edition of "Trying to keep my kid alive." Needless to say, I'll be doing a hands and knees mop of our floor tonight and hugging Little Bug a little closer. Next time one of my kids eats glass, which I'd like to hope will be never, at least we'll already be a well-oiled machine.

Keeping a child alive is hard work.