The Boy's Badge of Summer

My son lacks the finesse of eye-foot coordination (it must come from his mother's side of the family). Anything faster than a trot, and my son is nearly guaranteed to stumble and fall flat on his face. Prepping him with the parental warning of "no running" has little effect, and apparently pain has no memory... Otherwise P-Finn would have learned his lesson many times over.

I'm somewhat at odds here. On one hand, the kid clearly needs to burn off pre-nap energy, not to mention the whole bit about learning to run for enjoyment. Sure, give him a rolling park. Grass stains have a fairly quick recovery time. But oh, just a little bit of concrete is enough to grate away layers of skin and scabs. Damn, that sucker would bleed bright, bright red. Just enough to garner the attention of any onlookers.

The kid knows how to play sympathy's fiddle. "Daddy, I have a boo boo. It's bleeding. Pick me up." He would just stand there, paralyzed, one hand lifting his pant leg, giving the trickle of blood an unobstructed path towards his ankles. Depending on his audience, he might either give the sobbing performance of a lifetime, or laugh it off and jump right back into playing. You never quite know, though trust me: the remedy is not the answer he was looking for.

I did had some minor success in daddy triage utilizing a rolled paper towel to bandage the knee. This approach exaggerated the painful appearance of his injury. "I don't wand a band aid," he would pine on with a grimace that would suggest the cure more painful than the injury.

So... I quickly changed my approach and called it a "boo boo badge." It sounded somewhat tougher to me. Yeah, that didn't work either. It all came down to a moment's distraction while I slapped that band aid on his knee. Let me tell you, peeling away a half-way removed band aid was cause for an even bigger production!


The mosquito bites. The unexplained bruises. A blotch of what might be poison ivy. Splinters. Bee stings. And the skinned knees. These are the perpetual marks of a boy's badge of summer.