The Night of the Red Snail

this is the face of an injured boy.

last night revealed a characteristic in max we hoped would not be as prevalent as it exhibited itself yesterday; his tendency to overreact. he may have learned a thing or two from the master, his mommy, but i can only take so much responsibility for the occurrences of last night. brad was roughhousing with the boys while i was cramming dishes into the dishwasher, a typical evening around this house. suddenly, the giggles were pierced with a panicked scream. i rushed over to see maxer bent over his foot yelling "look at my red snail!" sure enough, his nail had kind of ripped and his toe was bleeding. truthfully, the injury did look painful. but it was not the pain that had maxwell all worked up. it was the red.

max began wailing "what do we do?", "i need a burn daid", and "daddy, get your flashlight!" brad assumed a role of dr dad while i tried really hard to keep the dry heaves dry. bear also went into hysterics just because he is such a sympathetic bro.

i am very grateful to report the toe is healing nicely after an evening of exaggerated limping, whimpering, and snuggling with dad. here we are checking things out this morning before bath time:

i sincerely hope these situations will help me tone down my own drama so as not to create a whole family of freakouts.