The Day’s Drama

Today’s drama was brought to us by a handful of dirt flung into the air.  Said dirt landed squarely in the 9-year old’s eye.  I heard keening, the type of sound that drills into a mother’s ears with unmistakable urgency.  I ran into the back yard and found my boy with his hands over his face, his body bowing to the ground.  I pulled his hands from his face, expecting blood and perhaps a handful of broken teeth, but I found an eye full of dirt.

I hurried him to the kitchen sink, directed the cold spray onto his face, yelled at him to OPEN YOUR EYE, and tried not to freak out.

After a lot of water, a moderate amount of yelling (“you HAVE to open your eye–pretend you’re at the pool!” . . . “but at the pool I wear goggles”!) , and some terror, we succeeded in removing all the dirt from his eyeball.

I’d rather have boredom that that sort of excitement.

My daughter, the culprit, was duly chastened and tearful when I gave her a stern lecture.  She threw the dirt with joy, not malice.  All the same, dirt in the eyeball hurts and scares a mother half to death.