I would like to tell you that there comes a point in parenting where you become impervious to the rough and tumble nature of kids. Surely, there comes a point where you’re no longer afraid that you “broke the baby” or whatever, right? RIGHT?
Sadly, I have yet to experience this magical time when I can stop worrying about one of the children falling over dead. And while I’m perfectly willing to believe that I am slightly more neurotic than the average person (shut up), I really think this is one of those “features” of motherhood that people just don’t talk about very much. Sure, we all swap stories about the various infant crises. (“And then! That one time! The baby wouldn’t stop crying! So off to the ER we went!”)
Maybe after they leave for college, I will no longer freak out about every little thing…?
I’ve written about this before; a veritable catalog of ridiculous injuries, really, considering that my children are—on the whole—hale and hearty. Even Chickadee, melodramatic that she is, no longer so much as blinks on the rare occasion that someone comments on her scar. (“We were in a car accident and I busted my head open. Now I look like Harry Potter!”)
This is not to say that we don’t have the occasional overreaction to a minor injury, the likes of which causes me to preface my loving maternal tending with, “The way you’re screaming right now, you had best be ON FIRE or BLEEDING HEAVILY.” But for the most part, I am no longer the same frightened new mother who was constantly afraid that one of the children would simply combust while I tried to figure out what to do to save them. I am cool and collected. I do not flinch or overworry.
However.
This morning I was packing lunches and Monkey went outside to fetch the paper. And then it happened.
The Wail.
If you have kids, you know The Wail. It is not the sound of displeasure or “pay attention to me” or “I am aggrieved.” Those wails are hard on the ears but don’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Those wails don’t send your adrenaline pumping and blind you to everything else.
The Wail pierces straight through your heart and your brain and you drop everything and run outside in the cold, barefoot and braless (still in your cartoon dog pajamas, even), and your breath catches in your throat because there’s your baby, face-down on the concrete, making that SOUND, that SIREN, and in the two seconds it takes to reach him you’ve already cataloged everything awful that may have happened.
[There’s a broken bone. Or more than one. His braces went clear through his lips. He knocked out teeth. He cracked his head open. His nose is broken. He fell down because something ELSE went wrong, something BAD.]
Three seconds later you’ve managed to assess that a trip and a flying, full-body-slam landing is indeed shocking and painful, but mercifully, the damage isn’t too bad.
I set Monkey up on the kitchen counter and went and gathered my supplies and then did a more extensive survey and patching up mission. He’d managed to skin his chin, the palms of both hands, and both knees. But nothing was broken. Nothing was gushing. (Oozing, maybe. You’re welcome.)
The pounding of my heart slowed down a bit as he regained himself and began to rant. First he wanted to stay home from school, owing to his heroic injuries. Then he assured me he’d never walk again. And as I squelched a giggle, I relaxed, because he was fine. We were fine.
Except for the part where I age another few years every time something like this happens….
Oh, I hate The Wail. My heart drops to my stomach and I launch myself at full speed toward the noise. Glad to hear that Monkey is ok. :)
Poor Monkey!! Hope there’s not too many lasting scars this time!!
My daughter pulled what we call a five-pointer this week: two knees, two elbows and her nose all smashed into the concrete sidewalk. Now she’s walking around with scabs on her face. To be honest I’m amazed we haven’t had any broken bones. Off to knock on something wooden. . .
OH, Mir… If you are like me, you will be worrying even when Monkey is 42 and driving with his wife and kids to North Dakota to spend Thanksgiving with the in-laws. My two babies are of college age, and it never gets better – there are just “different” things to worry about. I wish I knew how to turn it off!
and you wonder how you got from where you were to where they are without your feet touching the ground…
Oh, mercy. I feel you.
Maybe it’s because mine are older? Maybe because they (okay two of ’em) have thoroughly explored the many wonderful injury options open to a curious child with a total disregard for the consequences of gravity? Maybe I’m just callous and evil? Not sure but we’ve totally outgrown the wail (it’s now THUMP, $*##@@!!!) and all I do is sigh heavily and hope to avoid a trip to the doctor’s office.
Now, breaking the Children in other ways? Totally still fret over that. (Mental scars are healthy though – right? RIGHT??)
The last time I heard the wail I actually saw the accident coming and could do nothing to stop it. Of course the accident was caused by a completely unnecessary temper tantrum, but it didn’t stop my heart from jumping into my chest!
Oh! Poor thing!
The bad news is that you never get over those feelings.
The good news is that that’s how you know you are alive.
I’m glad my grandson has hard bones and a sturdy constitution.
I got “the wail” from the back yard yesterday. It was youngest who had just gotten hit in the head with the cross bar of the hockey net. I couldn’t get him in the house fast enough in fear the neighbors would come running with the sound of that screech.
::sigh:: He was fine. I told him if he ever screamed like that again and there wasn’t blood or substantial bruising involved, I was locking the back door next time. Clearly, he didn’t know that “the wail” needed to be used sparingly.
Did you look in the mirror? Maybe you have one of those groovy white streaks now. I hear they are all the rage.
You are taking a chance talking about the no broken bones. I mentioned to someone that the only thing my accident prone son hadn’t done was break a bone. This was on the way down to Washington for a little vacation. Do you know that sliding down the dinosaur’s tail-the one in front of the Smithsonian-gets you a ride in an ambulance and a cast to your hip. Especially if you insist on coming down facing the bottom of the tail. And your father has to pay some outrageous amount to fly down because your mother can’t lift you in and out of the car. That was 30 years ago and I still like reminding him of it. A little guilt never hurt anyone.
If it’s ten years off your life every time you get that feeling, I have maybe six months left to live.
Oh, I know the wail. And I get the same feeling in the stomach when I hear the screeching of brakes right outside the house even if the kids are all standing right in front of me. Parenthood is not for the faint of heart!
Holy cow. I’m so glad that Monkey is okay. I made the mistake of reading ahead a bit, and I saw your italicized speculation of what MIGHT happen and thought that it DID happen and nearly had a heart attack. Whew.
just wait until your child calls and says that the policeman wants to talk to you……
The Wail can pull at your gut, even when it is not your own kid. This weekend, at U14 boys soccer game, a player who I have known for years fell awkwardly and came up with “the Wail” and then “I’ve dislocated my wrist”. shiver……that sound will stay with me for a while…. (broken and dislocated wrist. your welcome)
Maybe when they go off to college, but don’t count on it. One of ours called, asked us to guess what he was going to do the next day – bungee jump( it was new then but so tame by today’s standards)- I allowed as how I wished he had called the day after and asked us to guess what he had done the day before. pppsssttt…I don’t color my hair…I earned every single one of them and I’m proud!
Whew!! Glad he’s okay.
The Wail – it does end. The heart and brain piercing do not… And lucky Me! I’ve got that “groovy white streak” going… I have contemplated swiping some of my daughter’s blue or magenta hair dye for it. That should go over well, no?
The last time that happened, I was outside in the garden and came in to The Wail. My kid–then five–was screaming bloody (heh) murder because she was in the midst of a catastrophic nose bleed and was terrified that she was dying. I still feel horrible that I wasn’t right there to tell her that it was just a reaction to the stupid nose spray the doctor gave her.
But, hey. We all need something to tell the therapist, right?
How timely. My 3 yr old choked yesterday on yogurt raisins. He’s fine. But I thought the days of shoving fists full of food into our mouths and not chewing were over. I also aged a bit!
I love bob’s comment…
Oh, the Wail. In our house it’s more like a screech – much as I imagine it would sound if you put a cat in a blender (I said imagine!!). Kind of PAINPAINPAINMORAL INDIGNATIONPAINPAINPAIN.
So far we haven’t had any major injuries, only a couple of “accidents” that resulted in nothing broken (but he’s still young). The first was when he was two and decided slamming his head down on the cement ball outside the Target like he did with his rubber balls at home. No, it didn’t seem like a good idea to touch it first to make sure it was made of rubber, why do you ask? That resulted in a whopper of a bruise, and ten seconds of crying. The second incident was when he decided to drive his trike down the front stairs outside. Good thing there wasn’t any pavement there.
Kids are fun!
I am a total hypochondriac on my kids’ behalf. And they don’t even appreciate it.
Eh, if it was ten years off every time, you’d probably be dead. Just sayin’.
So it’s more like, let’s say, one week? Let’s go with that. Sounds pretty accurate.
I haven’t been a baby since the Eisenhower administration (stop laughing!) but my mother still freaks out about every little thing–not so many skinned knees now, but menopause and finances and life’s griefs and disappointments. You’ll always be a parent and they’ll always be your babies.
I’m glad Monkey is okay. Thanks so much for the mental image of ooze.
I’ve read that The Wail is the leading cause of premature greying.
What a way to wake a mom up in the morning!
My most recent encounter with The Wail gave me a year’s worth of gray hair in one evening: First I heard I a tremendous crash from the girls’ room…after they were supposed to be sleeping. Then I heard The Wail. Keep in mind, their bedroom is at the front of the house, we’ve had some crime in our neighborhood recently, and Gracie’s bed is in front of the window. I ran in their to find that Gracie was fine – she had ripped the curtains out of the wall (AGAIN) and they had fallen on the bed and knocked everything off the dresser. I hugged her until we both calmed down, and then lit into her about how much she scared me. I think it worked – every night at bedtime for two weeks she told me she wouldn’t touch the curtains ever again.
I have one kid who doesn’t do “The Wail.” At age 5 he calmly walked into my room one Sunday morning at about 7:00am and said he’d cut his hand. Uhhh, yeah. With a craft knife. That he got off the top of the refrigerator. Five stitches. Or at age 7, when he hurt his thumb at a baseball game. Sure, he cried, but not much. Days later when I had the younger at the doctor for swollowing a penny, the doc looks at the older son’s thumb and orders an x-ray. Broken, of course.
*sigh*
I HATE the wail. We call it “THE Cry” It’s the worst. Glad he is alright, for the most part!
Oh yes, the wail. It hurts my heart every time and the adrenaline surging through my veins definitely shreds years off my life. Every time. Ugh.
Glad Monkey is no worse for wear, and that you were able to stifle the giggle at his notion he’d never walk again. I usually just bust out laughing which always catches my almost-five-year-old off guard and usually at least gets a bit of a smile out of him before the indignation sets in.
Well, I didn’t hear “The Wail” cause I was inside at a Sunday School Football party Sat. night but I made sure to face the windows in the back yard, watching my son play with a friend of his, when all of a sudden I saw my son, crying, and holding his head. He had accidently gotten whacked in the head with a baseball. I’ve never ran so fast out of the house and scooped up my 7 year old into my lap and calmed him down while his friend brought the ice pack out. He has a bruise that popped out. Finally he calmed down when I remarked that he has red marks from the stitching on the baseball when it hit him. He looked at me, with a little smile, and I said, “you wanna see it?” and took him to the bathroom and he looked at it and said “Cool!” then went back out to play. I think I aged 15 yrs. that night. I’ve given up on trying to keep my self looking like a natural blonde and also have decided not to pluck any more gray hairs as they are popping up too fast for me to do so.
Yep! Every mother knows her own child’s wail. There could be a hundred kids in the park but you know when it’s your own. And you’re throwing other children hither and yon to get to your baby.
An aside: have you ever had someone, like say oh I don’t know a mother in law, condescend you during one of those wails with her certainty that the child just wants attention? And did you want to punch her in the face? Or is that just me?
I hear you on The Wail. I’m glad Monkey is ok. We always find it fun to make up stories to tell other people about where the injury came from, rather than a boring old trip and fall. For Monkey’s injuries, may I suggest an explosion? Perhaps he and MacGyver (they do know who MacGyver is don’t they?) were rescuing a small tribe of Georgian aborgines on Tuesday and they needed to use fertilizer, baking soda and dental floss to make a blast. Obviously, they used too much dental floss and the blast knocked them both to the ground. But the aborgine were safe and that is all that really matters.
I would like to add that the only thing worse that The Wail is when you hear the crash and it is not accompanied by The Wail. Forget about making your heart beat fast, that one will stop your heart.
Aw. Poor little dude, though. Scrapes aren’t that serious but MAN! do they sting and in four places at once? Ouch!
Wait until one of them calls you at 3:00 a.m. and does THE WAIL over the phone from 3,000 kms away. That one took so many years off my life I’m now forced to apply for cat status or report to the Pearly Gates, STAT!
The baby still does the wail! I know when something is wrong the second I hear it – it’s hard to explain to someone though if they don’t have kids. My older two (only 8 and 5) have pretty much outgrown the wail. They think they’re tough and if someone else is around they won’t so much as make a peep.
Last night by 5 year old fell off the top of the bleachers and pretty much broke his fall with his face – and nothing. Not even a noise from him!!
Yesterday I got the “wail” over the telephone! While I was at work. 20 minutes away. With my 11 year old acting as Mom for the afternoon. Yes, I just added several new crows feet and brow creases.
Middle school was actually one of my worst periods for attempting to give my mother a heart attack. I made regular annual post-accident trips to the emergency room from when I was 11-13…sometimes more than annually. However, after that, I had no more ER visits until I was out of high school. Good luck, Mir.
Well, if you’re anything like my mom, by the time you stop worrying over your kids you’ll have grandkids to worry about.
Our last “wail” situation was when almost-3-year-old found my beach bag, pulled out the spray sunscreen, and sprayed it directly in his eyes. I heard the “wail”, ran in his room, and he’s standing there with his hands over his eyes shaking and screaming. Had I not recognized the smell of the sunscreen I don’t know what I would have done. Now he knows only grownups use “spray stuff”, or else we have to wash his eyes in the sink. And that’s no fun.
How about the breath of silence just before “the wail” ?? The longer that silence stretches out the worse (and more serious) the wail will be!
I’m not a big “doom and gloom” person….but, the college thought. Um, yah…..the worry just never seems to go away. It settles just a wee bit, but never disappears. Evvaaaa….Sorry. ;)
Heh. Actually, my nerves are wired the other way. The WAIL calms me down — whenever a kid makes that sound, they are usually hurt but not damaged. Damage (bones broken, ER trip advised) is often eerily quiet. I check things out when I hear a WAIL, but the panic hits when I see a fall but the sound level stays low.
I bet Olympic athletes would like to be able to bottle the stuff that causes parents’ superhuman reactions to The Wail. That’s some major performance enhancing substance, right there. Like adrenaline to the fifth power or something.
Competing with The Wail in my personal repertoire of performance enhancers is the “Thunka-thunka-bump, thunka-thunka-THUD” sound coming from the staircase every so often. Same kid, each time. Blessedly, never a major injury. Still, I’ve no idea how I run so fast with my heart completely stopped.
Yeah, the after-college thing…. well, I was having a conversation with my oldest, because I was researching something for this third book, and I needed to know how a cop would approach an area if he knows there’s a bomb. And my son said, “Well, in my experience…” [because he is, indeed, a police officer] and I interrupted and I said, “AS YOUR MOTHER, I AM NOT GIVING YOU PERMISSION TO APPROACH BOMBS. Or bad guys. Or you know, anything that would be more dangerous than a paper cut. I WILL WRITE YOUR BOSS A NOTE.” I’d like to pretend he’s a cop in theory only. It’s the only way I can sleep at night.
Sorry to hear about Monkey’s scrapes! I’m glad that the wailing wasn’t any more serious than that.
My two have spent the week alternately barfing and pooping extravagantly, which produces no wailing but is hell on everyone’s sleep. I will be very glad when this virus has worked its wait through all available household digestive systems.
I don’t get the full Wail. I get the short abbreviated wail followed by the hold your breath until someone has to blow in your face and then continue the wail. All this with HUGE alligator tears running down little fat cheeks. It breaks my heart each and every time. Even if I see the accident happen I still end up crying right along with them. And I actually vaulted a couch one time to get to mine. My hubby said he’d never seen anything like it…lol. He still tells people about that.
Oh, and that was jumping from over the back of the couch and never touching a cushion…damn, I’m good…hehe.
The aging is mental, not in the skin. Not so sure about hair color. Be comforted. And stress causes growth, er, maturation in children(same as aging). You’re welcome!
The Wail turns me to mush. Thank God he was ok. As for aging, you do with looking a bit nearer your age!! (not jealous)
about that not freaking out so much when they go to college…imagine that feeling of your heart stopping, rapid heart beat, craziness EVERY time your phone rings and it’s 1) the call is from an unknown number from the area code of his college town, 2) a phone call from his cell phone at a rather late hour because he just wants to say “hey, I aced my biology test” or 3) to say “mom, happy birthday….i know it’s after midnight but I wanted to be the FIRST one to say it” …and then you just die again.
I think it’s funny that as a mom you know the difference between “I’m crying because I got a little scratch” and “I’m crying because something just got dismembered”. On Monday, I sent my 5-year-old son into his room to get his piggy bank which was on top of his dresser. He usually climbs up on his bed to reach the piggy bank. But for reasons I am unclear on, he decided that day to climb up the FRONT of the dresser. I heard this huge **CRASH** and then The WAIL. Usually when my kids cry I just wait for them to come to me because they eventually will with some long sob story about who did what to who and his elbow hit my head and now I’m concussed or whatever. But that day I dropped everything and sprinted to his room like I was in the 100m dash at the olympics. Somehow I just KNEW what had happened and had this image of him pinned under his dresser with only his arms sticking it. Luckily, the dresser feel sort of sideways and got hung up on the edge of the bed. I have never been so thankful for a sideways falling dresser. He was just crouched underneath it in that little pocket of space screaming his head off but completely unharmed. He did sit snuggled close to me on the couch sniffling for about 30 minutes though. Scared himself just as much as me, I think.
I am only a step mother and yet I still jump at that wail. I am almost five months pregnant..and WOW i’m a stressed step mom. I cant wait to stress even more over my own kid! :)
Ah, the wail – the sound that has the ability to make moms (and dads) break the sound barrier running to the source of said wail – even when it is not your own kid. :)
I am having a little medical issue that I am sure is nothing. Of course, because I am sensible and catious, I am havign some tests done.
My mother is worried nigh unto her death.
I am 40.
It never. never. never. stops.
I’m sure the sensory issues complicate things. My son is alternately oversensitive or undersensitive to touch so some days he’ll brush up against something and wail and other days he will take what looks like a really hard knock and be blase about it. Today he crashed into something or other and I asked him if he was okay and he said, “Just a hurt, Mommy, no blood,” as if he never screams his head off when there’s no blood.
I was 21, in labor with my first child 2000 miles away from my mother. She called the hospital and threatened the nursing staff until they wheeled my bed out to the nurse’s station to let her hear that I was still alive and well. Apparently, as a mom, that NEVER goes away!!
Unfortunately, the wail at my house has now turned into the silent stare, you know something is bad, but you haven’t quite figured it out. The last one was a shattered ulnar bone that required surgery, 2 plates, 13 screws and 22 staples to recover from!! ARGH!! I am too young to be this gray!!
In our house I always tell the boys I don’t want to know what their latest battles are about, don’t get me involved so I pretty much ignore those tears. And often I’ll say I’m not getting involved in those battles unless there is blood. So don’t you know the one time there was blood, I’m ignoring the cries not knowing. Older brother comes upstairs and in short order says “there’s blood”..then I moved and boy was there blood. When the 7 year old is body slammed into a concrete wall by the older one, blood comes. Aging also.
My first thought for you both was, “The Braces!” Glad he’s fine. :)
I have a dramatic boy. He’s sick today and while Grandma was visiting this afternoon, I found him lying across the tile in the foyer, face down. Just laying there. Because he’s sick. Same boy who dragged himself across the house by his arms because his legs were loose.
But I do understand the Wail. Heart stopping.
apparently, according to my mom, the worrying never ends. It only gets worse. And that is the part they didn’t tell you – or me – because if they did…..well. You get it.
I hope he heals quickly.
Oh, poor kid!
On days when The Wail happens, I don’t need to work out; the way it sets my heart racing is enough cardio for the day.
Jodi, My brother is like that; no crying. He had broken bones we didn’t know about as a kid and when discovered (during x-rays for other broken bones, that we did known about) my mom was asked to leave the room so the dr. could “talk” to him. He doesn’t feel pain like normal people, it’s scary because they don’t always ask for help when they should. Keep an eye on him, my girls have it a bit too, but not to the degree my brother did.
I think the scariest is when you see the accident and The Wail starts out with no sound, you just know it’s bad then. I try to remind myself that they’re aware enough to wail, so that’s a positive, right?
Oh I know the wail. I just posted a picture on my blog last night of my youngest, now with more pirate! that came after the wail.
Ahh…the wail. I know it well. I hate that sound.
And as far as being neurotic, you are not. I still check on my 8-yr-old son at night, making sure he’s still breathing, like I once did with his 3-mo-old self. It’s hard to break that habit out of a mother, I think.
Glad he’s okay!
I thought of my mom when I read this post. I was (am) very clumsy as a child and fell often. I have many scars from my childhood including one from teeth busting through my lip and another from a wood chisel falling into my arm. However, I never broke a bone until I was 21. So maybe you will need to worry about them more after they leave for college…
I thought of my mom when I read this post. I was (am) very clumsy as a child and fell often. I have many scars from my childhood including one from teeth busting through my lip and another from a wood chisel falling into my arm. However, I never broke a bone until I was 21. So maybe you will need to worry about them more after they leave for college…
My son, unfortunately, takes after his mama. So I have learned the difference between the real hurting and the fake – the wail tells all.
When they go off to college, it’s a little better, as long as you don’t dwell overly long on what they might be doing. I just learned my college-aged son bought himself a long board. This is the same son who knocked out his four front teeth on a simple bike ride. So I’m holding my breath, hoping I don’t hear “the wail” via a telephone call. (And no, he’s not wearing a helmet. That’s so.not.done. Nor is he protecting the teeth we’ve invested thousands of dollars into with a mouth guard. I mean, come on, don’t be silly. If you’re riding a long board, you have to look the part, and helmets and mouth guards just don’t cut it.) Sigh. Heavy, heavy sigh.
I still remember the time when I was… let’s see, I must have been 12 or 13, and so my sister must have been five or six? And we were riding bikes — hers was this little bitty thing, with training wheels, and she jammed on the brakes going downhill and went head-first over the tiny handlebars and before my own ears had even registered the Wail, our mom had gone from inside the house to halfway down the street in full sprint.
I did this to my mom once. Okay, I did it a lot, but the worst scream she said I ever let loose was when a dog (A VERY LARGE DOG) was chasing me around the back yard (I WAS VERY SMALL!). I was shaking for a good 20 minutes, but I was totally physically fine.
Some day I will have kids and all this will come right back at me. :p
OK, I’ve read every comment and I agree with every single one. But I have to say that I’ve got you all beat! (Because this is a competition, right? Just kidding!)
The worst, the absolute WORST, is when you hear the wail coming from the backyard where your kids are playing with the neighbors, and you leap like lightning from the chair and bolt out the door (you’ve never seen a fat woman move so fast!), fully expecting to see total and complete dismemberment…only to find that both of the kids are producing The Wail because they saw a bug.
A wolf spider, to be exact.
It was all I could do to not dismember them myself.
That wail is heart-stopping. Bubby did that this summer when he was kicking rocks (don’t ask) and fell on a huge pile and ripped his side open. No matter where you are, you can tell your own kids wail and I flew out to him. He was fine, but still has scars on his side from the incident. Pretty sure I aged 10 years too that day.
LOL and I agree with Em above…we made up a story that he was saving me from a mountain lion, that is how he got the scars lol.
For me, it’s always head injuries. Good lord, the head injuries of my children age me a few decades every time, what with the waking them from sleep every two hours and wondering if every little “off” thing is sign of brain trauma. I wish the kids would just wear helmets all the time. Even to bed. What if they fall out of bed????
Thank you for that – now I truly can understand a lot of things from my childhood. I shared this with my mum and she said I had a truly fantastic wail :)
I can determine my son’s wail. My daughter on the other hand is more difficult. She Screams at everything and always has had a scream that makes most people cringe. Recently she had her tonsils taken out and with that the hopes that the scream would be not as deafening. If anything it made it so it didn’t hurt anymore to scream. So her wail is more difficult to detect. Is it bad when someone tells you that she is screaming and you don’t worry about it until you see the blood?
Only thing worse than the wail is the sickening thud and then silence……