It started off easy.  We stretched, did some jumping jacks.  By the end all I could think was "you want me to do what?"

Last night I started Tae Kwon Do.  Tyler has been going for two weeks and I've been jealous.  Then they offered a free month trial for family members and I jumped at the chance.  Little did I know I was starting right as the rest of the class was getting ready to test for their next rank.  We puhs-ups in three varieties.  (Try making a triangle with your hands and doing push-ups that way.)  We did jumps in which we had to squat on our heels and jump as high as we can, ten times as fast as we can.  We did modified sit-ups.  I haven't worked that hard in ten years.  And that's the point. 

I ran track in high school until I got pregnant.  Since then I have never gotten back to that level of physical activity.  I've tried the gym but I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything.  The human hamster wheel makes me want to scream.  Outdoor exercise is out because my tolerance for cold is nill and therefore can't go outside for four months a year.  This seems to be perfect.  I learning to do something instead of holding this vague idea of "getting in shape" as my goal.  I can help Tyler with what he's learning. 

I had fun.

Now I just have to survive.

I have come to the conclusion that my primary job responsibility as a parent of two boys is to keep them alive.

Oliver is fairly self contained.  He can entertain himself for reasonably long periods of time for a three year old.  However, it is nice to get him out of the house so I had planned to take him to story time at Barne's and Noble.  This would also provide me an opportunity to pick up my new book and get a couple for Tyler, three birds with one stone!  He was in high spirits and decided to hide behind the couch when I asked him to come get his shoe on.  I got hold of him under his arms and we were both laughing as I pulled him up.  Not for long.  He planted his feat on my hip, arched his back and pushed off, right out of my hands.  Crack!  the back of his head slammed right on the edge of the window sill and he landed on the arm chair.  Now came the screaming.  I scooped him up in my arms and knelt on the floor rocking him, my right hand cradling the back of his head.  As he started to calm down I noticed he had some raspberry jam on the back of his collar.  Now how did that get there?  That's when I felt the blood running down my arm.  Without realizing I had been putting pressure on the cut in the back of his scalp.  I got him into the bathroom (by now he was no longer crying the tough guy) and while I was debating whether this warranted a trip to Instacare or the ER the bleeding stopped. 

I called my mom.

Even if she hasn't seen it before mom can confirm my thinking, that if he's stopped bleeding almost immediately all the doctor would do is tell us to keep it clean.  He didn't lose consciousness (he really only fell a couple of feet) or demonstrate any of the symptoms of concussion (did I mention he fell off the back of a couch onto a tile floor about six months ago) so he's pretty much going to be ok.  Sometimes we just need someone else to tell us this too.

We stripped him down and rinsed the blood out of his hair in the bath tub.  Then I tricked him into looking at the floor while I poured hydrogen peroxide over it.  The cut is pretty nasty looking, about an inch long and a quarter inch wide but unless it gets infected he'll be fine.  We changed all the sheets and pillowcases and I'm not letting him play outside until it gets a good solid scab on it. 

We survived.

Yesterday I found myself to be in completely over my head as a parent.  The implications of what I was told by my six year old stagger me. 

Tyler was sitting on his bed pulling his socks on, stretching his socks on to be precise with his leg stuck out and dragging them half way up his calf.  He looked at me and said "Mom, I don't want to watch movies with fighting in them anymore."  Interesting.  Tyler has been alternately devoted to Star Wars and Transformers over the summer. "Ok, that's fine, can you tell me why?" "Because they give me nightmares and I'm afraid if I keep having nightmares that my head will explode. Not like really explode but part of my brain might stop working and I wouldn't be able to remember things anymore."  I looked at my brilliant little boy and loved him and did the only thing I could.  I told him that as far as I was concerned if he didn't want to watch them anymore then we wouldn't.  Simple as that.  I took a few minutes to establish which sorts of movies seemed to be the culprits (The Incredibles is fine, Treasure Planet is out) and we headed off to school. 

Later I found myself coming back to that short and seemingly benign conversation over and over.  Finally I realized what disturbed me so much about that short exchange.  Essentially my first grader had told me that he didn't want to watch scary movies anymore because he is afraid that if he continues to have nightmares he will lose his mind.  What do you do with that?  How do you respond?  The self-possession required to even recognize and give voice to such a complex fear boggles my mind. 

I suppose the first step is one I have already set in motion.  I called his dad and told him about what Tyler said and asked him to take some care in screening which movies Tyler watches and gave pretty much the same message to all of the family members involved somehow in his care.  This was the easy part.  Now I have to figure out how to give my son a childhood when all of a sudden I look at him and see someone more like an adult.