Pickles and Honey and Bumps on the Head

Db hit his head on a tow truck Friday afternoon.

How is THAT possible, you ask? OK, picture this:

It's raining hard. He's wearing his oversize Mets jacket with the hood up. He's still got his patch on. (That reminds me, I forgot his patch this morning. Don't care.) He's not really looking where he's going.

The tow truck was parked at the corner. The iron cross bar sticks out at a 45-degree angle at a height of, I now know, about 42 inches.

I had crossed the street ahead of him (it's a quiet street) and was encouraging him to come along and stop looking at whatever he was looking at. His body moved before his head turned and

****W-H-A-M!*****

The first thing he said after he stopped crying was, "Will it be better when I'm a grownup?" Later he said something about "the truck that broke my forehead."

Poor guy.

Needless to say, he wasn't too interested in doing gymnastics after that.

We went inside anyway, mainly because it was pouring rain, and he watched part of the class and played with his friend P (whose sisters take that class) for a bit, then we left.

He didn't black out, he never took that long-nap they warn you about following head injury, yet... I still worry.

I grew up with the mindset of, "If it's not life-threating, there's no reason to go to the doctor." So I'm not the type to drag him to the pediatrician when there's probably nothing they can do.

But I wonder -- because, oddly enough, he was Really Good all weekend. Doesn't that qualify as an uncharacteristic behavior change?

Now, he may have been really good due it it being Birthday Party day (Saturday) and Sunday he had lots of new stimulation from all his new presents. Very possible.

But we also took him to Pickle Day on the Lower East Side, and he tolerated being there and even tried some honey and wanted to buy some.

Last night he said, as he laid in bed, that he was dizzy. How can you be dizzy lying in bed? So I figured it was that dropping-off-to-sleep dizziness. Then he was hot. But fever doesn't show up as a symptom of head injury. (And my Google search about pediatric head injury symptoms didn't give me anything, really, to worry about.)

Then this morning, everything worked right. He woke up and I was right there but didn't startle him. He roused himself, told me he was waking up enough to get up, got his classes, and said "I'm ready," then sat up and headed to the playroom. His bus was late so we had time to do everything: Tell a story (the usual); eat his marshmallow bar; and have a race. We said after we did all that if the bus hadn't arrived, I'd drive him, but just as we finished, the bus pulled up ... and he was OK with it. Amazing.

How sad is it that my delight is tempered with, "Is he OK?"