During moment A, I was proudly watching my son pull himself into a standing position using the second tier of a bookshelf. He was smiling with self-satisfaction and gently reaching for my Jonathan Carroll first editions.Moment A —> Moment B = 0.038 seconds
During moment B, I was scooping him up in my arms. His left hand had slipped, dropping the left side of his head nearly six inches into the rounded corner of the shelf. In specific order, he hit the corner of his lip and then his temple. I wasn't fast enough.
Then came the true look of pain on his little face. This made the facial expressions that he's had during immunizations look like he was having a jolly ol' time getting stuck with needles. In short order, the crying came. I rocked him gently as he wailed a song I had never heard out of him before.
First blood. He had split his lip wide open, and the blood was beginning to pool in the corner of his mouth. I began taking him downstairs when I met his Mom, whose spidey-sense must have been felt in thirty-three counties. All I could do was firmly state that he was alright, and that he was bleeding. At one point, he looked like the sloppiest vampire after a night on the town.
We cleaned him up, passing him to one another as he kept crying. As soon as he was taken to the back door, he seemed to forget the entire episode. When we went outside, it was as though nothing had happened. The bump on his noggin and the fat lip he was sporting stated otherwise, but who was I to question it?
All of this is best summarized as follows:
B - A = Father's premature aging of at least one year
