Boys Will Be Boys

I have 2 boys and I am going to let them be boys.

Every mother wants to wrap their child up in cotton wool until they are bigger to keep them safe, but you have to let them grow and experience.

If my 2 want to roll in the mud, then I will help to bath them afterwards.
If they want to try a jump on a small ramp with their bikes, then I will clean the cuts and grazes when they slide off.
And if they want to do something that ends up with them breaking something, I maybe won’t stand around and watch them partake of it, but I will escort them to the emergency room to get them patched up / stitched up or plastered up afterwards.

Boys will be boys and there is no stopping them, but who would want to?
Doing all this boy stuff is good for their coordination, balance, timing, trust, mental agility, bone and muscle growth and general overall knowing what their bodies can do.

Or at least that is what I am telling myself 16 hours after Alex (5 ½) has fallen 2 ½ m out of a tree at the caravan park!
Yes that is right, I watched him up a tree and then I saw him slip and fall like a rag doll to the grass below! Narrowly missing a parked boat nearby by ½ m!

How is he ............fine.
A little shaken and shocked, maybe a little bruised, a nice little fat lip inside where his teeth went but other than that fine.
Luckily, as mentioned, he fell like a rag doll and so landed on his whole body and not just one area so the whole impact was distributed.

We did the usual stuff......check for bone breakage, movement, bleeding, time and place knowledge, eye movement, speech etc
We kept the neurological checks going all evening and he is still ok.
An hour afterwards he was fine and running around, sort of like nothing had happened but still a little quiet. Occasionally (every 2 hours or so) he would lay down and say his tummy and head hurt, but palpation of his tummy came up negative and his time and place were accurate and his eye movement was fine.
He would then suddenly perk up again and go out and play, running around riding his bike etc

Although it hadn’t stopped us suspecting a mild concussion and therefore muggings here just spent the night sharing a bed with him so I could wake him every hour or so to check he woke up, that he didn’t have any pain or wasn’t feeling sick. As advised to us by the on call medical person on the phone, because as I mentioned, we are at the caravan and the local medical centre is for a very small township and therefore is not manned night and day, come 8pm if you want a doctor then you either dial 111 for the ambulance or you drive the 45 mins to Tauranga Hospital.

Also, even though we are both nurses ourselves, it is always reassuring to get someone else to say what they think and realise that you were doing the right things and were thinking the same things.

But of course he is fine.
So of course boys will be boys and I am not going to stop my 2 being boys.
Although just as long as they let me get through the next 2 weeks of our holiday with no more heart stopping moments then I will be ready for the next time they need me!