Silly Monkey Story: The Polite Patient

A few days ago, our 5 year old daughter took a spill for no apparent reason in her brothers' room.  She ended up getting a patch of rug burn right above her elbow.  After a couple of days, the patch was completely scabbed over.

Then one evening, while the children were getting ready for bed, our daughter calls down from upstairs and asks me where her Dad is.  I asked her what she needed and she said in her usual small voice . . .

"I have a little problem I need help with."

So, my husband goes to check on her and asks her what she needs.  I heard her repeat the same statement, "I have a little problem I need help with."  Then I heard her start to cry a little bit.

Well, it turns out she had bumped her scab and tore it off halfway.  There was blood gushing out and dripping on the floor.  I don't blame her at all for crying because it was a lot of blood and it must have hurt quite a bit.  What I cannot understand is why she did not just say "I need help!" or "I'm bleeding!!!" with more of a sense of urgency.  The way she was talking, you'd think she had dropped a toy behind her bed rather than bleeding profusely.

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For Better or For Worse: The Big Toe Incident

It's been about a year since the incident, so I think it is fine for me to share this story with you now. It all started when we had a big stack of cardboard boxes sitting in the upstairs hall waiting to go into the attic. Some of them were empty because I had just unpacked some of the clothes I had kept from our oldest for his little brother to wear.

My husband had completed the regular bedtime ritual with our children, when he came out into the hall and caught his toe on one of the boxes. Then I saw him get as angry as anyone could get with a box and he gave that box a good swift kick.

After we surveyed the damage, it turned out that my husband had completely lost the nail on his big toe. He was in terrible pain and it took him months to recover. Luckily it was not in the middle of the winter and he could still wear flip flops without getting strange looks.

A week later, while we were getting settled into bed for the night, my husband told me something. What he told me was that he did not lose his nail from catching it on the box, but rather he lost it when he got angry and kicked the box. I was very nice and only laughed a tiny little bit and I did not say, "That's what you get for losing your temper at a poor defenseless box!"

I waited a whole year to share this story. I think now he can look back on the "Big Toe Incident" and laugh.