Waylon's face was assaulted in church nursery this past Sunday.
Joey and I show up to pick him up after church and he meets us at the door, Blanket in hand, puffy-eyed, face swollen. "We were just about to page you," Nursery Lady One says. "He got bit on the cheek."
Waylon's all smiles...and a few sniffles.
"We usually have some ice packs that we use when something like this happens," Nursery Lady Two interjects, "but all we could find was this teething ring and he just tries to bite it every time we put it on his cheek."
"I'm so so sorry," says NL1. "Really sorry."
"It's ok," I say. "It's not your fault." I take Waylon from NL1 to cuddle him a minute, offering unneeded support and sympathy. The kid seems fine to me, apart from his puffier-than-usual cheek with a perfect pink and purple ring that goes from his eye to his chin.
"That's the one that bit him," NL2 points to Dennis the Menace sitting patiently on the front of the stroller bus in the hallway, all too familiar with the current situation. He must spend lots of time in a time-out chair, or the Principal's office.
How old is that kid? I think to myself. Five? Geez.
It was Waylon's first Sunday in the "Walkers" class, but I had no idea it included one to five-year-olds. (Ok, I know he wasn't that old, but he was a good deal more mature than Waylon. I made a quick mental comparison based on the kind of shoes the two were wearing. Waylon's still in soft-soled slippers = an innocent new walker. This wack was wearing thick, rubber-soled hiking boots = seasoned, professional baby-biter.) Later, as Joey and I hashed and re-hashed the morning, we decided that squirt had "trouble-maker" written all over him. From his spiked, crooked dirty-blond hair to his steel-toed baby-kickers, he was up to no good.
"When something like this happens, we usually try to allow the parents to meet so they can talk about the situation," NL2 explains the procedure and hands me an accident report. "Treatment: Cold packs and lots of love," it read.
I pictured a thick-necked, meat-head dad that was always telling his boy to fight back and a Botox-injected flake of a mom that barely had time for her only child, what with all the mani-pedis and personal training sessions. I could not imagine a more awkward situation, so we bailed.
Even Waylon's eyeball was blood-shot. How did that punk get such a good mouthful of Dub's cheek? I was so sad for Waylon. Joey and I really were torn up. We're still recovering. Waylon was seriously fine. No big deal. His cheek got worse before it got better. We called him Shark Bate that day.
It's the first time someone else has intentionally hurt my son. The feelings I had were foreign to me. I wanted to make him better, to take the hurt away, and I really wanted to punish that kid. (We won't talk about the ideas I had.) The Mama Bear in me has been in hibernation, but she was rudely awakened Sunday morning. You don't need to tell me this won't be the first time. I'm aware we have a lifetime of this ahead of us. Most of the time, I choose to remain naive to the innate sinful nature born in all of us. I know the world is a mean and ugly place and that Waylon and I have a lot to learn. Lesson One was unexpected and hard. I think I could handle it all a little better if I could get a schedule, please.
I had told myself that with Waylon starting MDO in the next couple of weeks, this was only the beginning. Change of plans. Not going back to the Salon. Not starting MDO. God's doing something else that I don't know about.
Stay tuned.
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