I'm always amazed at the callousness in which veteran parents react to their children's bumps and scrapes. I once saw a child with some bleeding injury show her father the wound and the father, who happened to be a medical doctor, replied, "Maybe you should see a doctor." The child stormed off and the dad just shrugged and took another sip of his beer.
New parents don't have that thick skin yet and so when Dylan got her first scrape (and bloody nose) this week from doing a header off a bed, I think most expected our reaction to fall between a Drivers' Education instructor in Thanksgiving traffic and a Baptist in Amsterdam on the shocked scale.
Surprisingly, Regina and I were unfazed by the news. Probably because we're both still in disbelief that we actually have a real baby. "Is she okay?" we both asked. Yes, was the reply, she is now.
"Okay."
"Okay? She could have been really hurt."
"She's tough," I said. "But she wasn't hurt," said Regina (the better and more appropriate response I later learned).
At first, Dylan's nose looked a little like Ted Kennedy's: red and swollen. Currently, she's lost that alcoholic Senator's glow and looks like a typical fourth place finisher in any X-Games competition. It's just a nice scab and is healing well. She's also quickly learning not to pick scabs and how to say, "Owww."
Dylan came home today with a fresh wound on her head. Did I mention that she's standing? And falling? Hence the head wound. The word today was that she didn't even cry over this one. "She's tough," I beamed, just before Regina cuffed me on the back of the head.
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