Accidents and Brotherly Love

We had a little accident yesterday. On a scale of scraped knee to trip to the emergency room, it fell somewhere in the middle, although next time my husband might avoid this description (said to the 7-11 guy where he was buying ice cream for our injured one) :

"I was playing with my son when I pulled the leash and he fell on his face and
bit his lip."

No, as much as we're sometimes tempted, we don't keep our child on a leash. He was playing with the dog leashes, and daddy's exuberence went a little far as often happens. There was blood and tears and more blood, and panic of course. We went into full parental mode - "Drop everything and get a napkin now!" followed by a boo-boo pack request, water to rinse out his mouth to find the source of ALL THAT BLOOD. In the meantime, requests from our older son were dismissed.

As I joined dad and our injured one in the bathroom, a small voice in my head was trying to get through, to make me remember we had another son. The older brother who, as much he tries to give his annoying little brother time-outs, and puts up grudgingly with the hitting and grabbing, really does love his brother. Earlier that day he nearly had a panic attack in the car when his little brother threatened to undo his seat belt. "If you don't turn that off RIGHT NOW, I'm unbuckling this," were the rascal's exact words, referring to the lullabies I was using to put them to sleep. "If you do, you'll be getting a 10 minute time-out at home" was my reply, as I was pretty sure he was not going to do it. "Mommy, just turn it off. Turn if off, mommy, he's going to unbuckle himself" I hear from the back, rising panic in my older son's voice. He's definitely my cautious one, still scared to go in his room alone while his younger brother only uses that excuse to get attention. Giving in to these unreasonable demands certainly trumped any safety risks.

So I finally listened to that little voice, and went out to find a sobbing child on the couch. "I want to see D. I want to see D." I bundled him up in my arms, reassuring him that everything was all right, and apologizing profusely for leaving him out there, not telling him what was going on. "I'm going to draw him a picture." He also drew a big heart with this brother's name on the back, and gave him his three favorite heart crayons. And that picture is what you see above, my heart just broke.

Cross-posted at Silicon Valley Moms Blog.