If There Was Any Doubt

Patrick is so definitely my kid. Today he learned the word "boo-boo," and all of a sudden it's his favorite word.

We were outside playing with the dog (who was really more lolling in the grass) when Patrick slipped on our patio and skinned his knee--just barely. After cleaning it, however, I noticed that his toe was also injured, although whether this happened at the same time the knee was skinned I have no idea.

The toe isn't bad either, just a little skin pulled away from the top of the toenail. It looks a bit uncomfortable but nothing else. In fact, Patrick didn't even notice it until I brought it to his attention by putting a Band-aid on it--his first.

I explained to him that we were putting a Band-aid on his boo-boo to help it feel better faster and at Matt's suggestion gave him some M&M's to help it feel better (and distract him from the Band-aid that he desperately wanted to peel off).

Since then he has been oddly sedate. I've hardly coaxed even a smile out of him, and he keeps looking at the offending toe. When he got up after lunch, his first attempt walking on the foot since the bandaging, he hobbled with an obvious limp to the couch, where he has sat watching Blue's Clues intently ever since, occasionally reaching an arm down that leg, probably to play with the Band-aid, but he keeps resisting the temptation at the last second.

So he can bump his head hard against the table or something without seeming to even notice, but the second I put on a Band-aid, he puts on a show for me. I wonder where he could have picked up such dramatics about injuries...