This is a story about this child of mine:
The one I’ve called the drama king, whose toy conflicts require trial by jury, whose every sniffle becomes a matter of national security.
I don’t think the title quite does him justice.
We went outside after dinner last Thursday to play for an hour before baths. Nicholas promptly tripped on his bare toes and went down on all fours on the concrete. Screams. Running to my outstretched arms. “I need—huh, Mommy!” (Hug.) But a hug apparently wasn’t enough; judging by his body language, the only sufficient comfort would be to crawl back inside me. (In case you missed the memo, that space is taken.)
He had a pair of minor raspberries to show for his mishap. Very minor. Not worth the energy for a special trip inside to clean them up, not when we were forty minutes from bath time. So I snuggled him for a minute and sent him off to play again.
Ten minutes later, down he went again. Back to my outstretched arms. Another assault on my poor uterus. Then Alex distracted him with a wild ride in the push-car, and giggles reigned on our street.
When we went inside for baths, the drama began. “My knee hurt,” he sobbed over and over. “My knee…my knee hurt…” You know when you scrape your knee, and it’s fine as long as you don’t change the angle of the joint? I tried to show him that if he’d just get his leg straight in the bathwater, the pain would ease off in a minute. No way. He was inconsolable. “Do you just want me to wash you and get you out?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he sobbed.
So much for my grand plans of folding the last remnant of laundry while they played. I washed him to a chorus of ear-splitting wails, wrapped him in a towel and carried him to my bed, where I could snuggle with him long enough to calm him down so I could wrestle Julianna through her bath. (I’ve never liked bath time, but in the third trimester I really loathe them. I’m a sweaty mess by the time I’m done.)
But he wouldn’t calm down unless I had my hand wrapped around his head, pressing it into my shoulder, and my cheek on his forehead. Any time I tried a variation on this position, the howling ratcheted upward again. “Nicholas, I have to go wash your sister,” I said repeatedly, with decreasing patience.
At length, he consented to be abandoned, providing he was covered with a crocheted blanket. I went to deal with Julianna, who likes having her hair washed about as much as she likes a visit to the cardiologist. When we finished with teeth, hair and jammies, I looked around for Nicholas, expecting him to be back up and around by this point.
Nope. Nicholas lay exactly where I left him, sniffling and quivering on my bed, under a blanket.
About this time Christian finished teaching lessons and came upstairs. “What was THAT all about?” he said.
“A skinned knee,” I said. “Can you believe it?”
Christian walked over to Nicholas. “Can I see it, buddy?”
Screams. Chubby arms clutching the blanket. Christian looked at me with concern. “Are you sure it isn’t dislocated or something?”
“He’s been walking on it,” I said. “He’s just being a drama king.”
Christian smothered a smile. “Well, then,” he said in his best teasing voice, “I guess we’ll just have to cut your knees off. What do you think, Nicholas? Should we cut your knees off?”
Oh, you thought there was screaming before, did you?
“Christian!” I shrieked. I flung myself across the bed and attempted to explain the concept of “teasing” to a two-year-old. Abashed, my husband came over and tried again. “Nicholas, will you let me look at it?”
Screams. Nicholas lunged for Mommy. I shot my husband a glare. “I wouldn’t let you look at it, either, after that!”
Christian gave up and retreated. If it wasn’t so funny, he might have felt bad. “Must remember,” he said, “that Nicholas doesn’t understand teasing yet.”
Ah, the melodrama of a scraped knee.
In case you’re wondering, Nicholas never mentioned it again.
Kathleen M. Basi 
you need to play third trimester for all it’s glory. My dh took over bathing our eldest at that time… and for the most part he became the bath giver. He was so much more fun that I was since I was about business and he would play
Yeah, I wish. The trouble is that on Tuesdays he’s teaching piano lessons all the way up till bedtime. This week, it was Thursday because of a series of circumstances that are too complicated to go into. 🙂 I try to get him to do it, I will say that!
Oh my gosh, this made me laugh, because I have a 7-yr-old daughter who still (STILL!) goes completely bananas whenever she gets the slightest scrape, and a husband who still (STILL!) doesn’t seem to realize that teasing her won’t help. The drama llamas, they are everywhere. 🙂
I have a suggestion but you wouldn’t like it. You’d think I was just an old “think she knows it all” grandmother which is exactly what I am.
Oh, now Dottie, that was just a tease. 🙂
It was obnoxious is what it was! I made it sound like “I have the answer to your problem but I’m not going to share it.” I’m going to channel Dr. Phil right now. He says, if you need to change a child’s reaction (in this case an overreaction to a minor injury) you have to change your reaction to it. I’m going to repeat a disclaimer I know I made in a previous comment. If you don’t change anything, Nicholas is still going to grow up just fine.
Hilarious. I must say, I don’t know how your nerves can stand the screaming in the confines of a bathroom with the sound bouncing everywhere. Fortunately, kids eventually outgrow this and we forget all about it.
This brings back memories. Good ones because when you are an empty nester like me, they are all good ones! lol
Oh my, can I relate. Andrew was (and at 6 still is!) quite the drama king and the fall-out for minor scrapes were ridiculous!
I’m with Christian–offer to cut it off if it hurts so badly
Hee hee! Dottie’s comment made me laugh, because I *never* freak out over my children’s injuries…sometimes I think I’m underreacting. Up till now that’s always worked reasonably well, but this one–hoo-boy! He’s something else!