"Hi, Doctor."

This morning Little Bug was having a serious meltdown. Serious. Real tears, thrashing, trying to gag himself to throw up (I don't know where he learned that trick, and thankfully has hasn't been able to pull the trigger, but COME ON!), etc.

The reason? I was trying to put on his clothes. You know, the type of injustice tantrums were made for.

So at one particularly violent part of this tantrum, I took his face firmly in my hands and turned it so we could make eye contact and I could let him know that I was kind of over this.

The blood gushing out his nose stopped that train of thought. Lots of bright red blood coming out of one nostril. Oh, God.

I'm really lucky that for as clumsy and uncoordinated as my sweet boy is, he rarely bleeds. Unfortunately, that means when I do see blood, this first-time mama sort of internally freaks out. It took me about 3 minutes to get the blood to stop and get him settled with some Thomas the Train (which he has never been interested in before, in part because I try to shield him from it because I find it incredibly creepy). It took me another 5 minutes before he would let me get near his face to wash the dried blood off. I figured his school would appreciate that one. PS: totally late for work at this point.

The whole time I'm thinking through the possible reasons for this nosebleed. Cancer? Brain hemorrhage? Blunt Trauma? Dry air? Picking his nose? Cancer? Brain hemorrhage? His cold? Random luck? Cancer? Brain hemorrhage?

Seth is a head banger when he tantrums, so I'm a little oversensitive about his head, which I think is why I kept worrying that this was somehow a manifestation of one-too-many whacks on the hardwood floor. Appa, who was not available this morning, is usually so calm and logical, but when it comes to Little Bug, he is as over vigilant as I am. So of course he was concerned when I called him and strongly suggested I take Little Bug to the doctor.

"Hi, Doctor. My son had a nose bleed this morning. It stopped. It's just a single instance. He has a cold, and I forgot to turn on his humidifier last night. Clearly he has cancer or a brain hemorrhage, don't you agree?"

I'll bet the doctor actually hears that a couple times a week. I'm going to call the doctor when the office opens, and I will bet you his nurse will tell me in the kindest terms possible to chill the heck out and remember to turn on the humidifier tonight.