Ouch

I’ve had two ouch moments recently that jolted me out of my relatively comfortable middle aged existence.

Last Sunday, moments after the 6th grade CYO basketball team I help coach won its quarterfinal playoff game, we huddled together outside the gymnasium for a postgame wrap-up. Coach Connor, who just turned 17 and plays JV ball at a local high school, also reminded the team how important our final two practices would be this week.

“We’re going to work on our inbounding and beating the press,” Connor said. “But I won’t be there Thursday.”

“Coach Martin and I can handle that practice,” I said. Coach Martin is the father of Connor. His other son, Patrick, plays on our St. Isabella’s squad.

From out of nowhere, my son, Miguel, swooped in with a major dose of reality. “If you two are going to run practice you have to pay attention this time. No talking to each other on the other end of the court.”

Ouch. Double ouch.

I looked at the team and saw grins on their faces. Miguel’s smile was wide and slightly sheepish.

“I think I was just dissed by my son,” I said.

“Well, it’s true,” he said.

And he was right.

Martin and I understand the game of basketball, but we couldn’t diagram or design a play to save our lives. That is Connor’s territory. He lives and breathes basketball. Before our first round playoff game he said to me, “I was up playing basketball last night until midnight.”

Not video game basketball. Not on the computer. But real live bouncing the ball on the hardwood inside some school gym basketball for serious aficionados basketball.

So Martin and I gladly step aside at the practices when Connor is there, and what else can the two of do but converse about life, love, and avoiding serious prostrate issues for two men at or near 50?

But Miguel’s semi-serious admonition was a wake-up call for me. Then Martin called me Monday morning as I was driving Miguel and a neighbor to school.

“Maybe we could move practice to another day,” he said. “Then Jacob and Kendal (our two big men) can be there.” Both of them have never been able to practice on Wednesdays because of a previous extracurricular activity.

So Martin and I agreed to switch the practice to Tuesday and keep our usual Thursday schedule. Then the proverbial shoe dropped.

“But Connor and I won’t be there Thursday. We’re going to see the Warriors. Connor’s a big Brandon Roy fan. The Warriors are playing his team, the Trailblazers.”

Then the other shoe dropped and I nearly careened off the side of the road.

“And Connor won’t be at the game on Saturday,” Martin continued. “He’s got the SATs.”

When I shared the conversation with Miguel before we turned into his school, all he said was, “You better take notes at practice on Tuesday.”

Ouch.

Martin and I are on our own this Saturday bright and early for the first semifinal matchup at 9 am. If we win, we play in the championship game on Sunday afternoon. If we lose, we busy ourselves with Little League baseball, which began in late January, with regular season games beginning this weekend.

My next ouch moment occurred last night at work. Verna went into San Francisco for a special talk sponsored by her breast cancer support group. So I had the kids with me because I needed to work later, until 6:30. Normally I work until five or so, but one of my co-workers is off this week due to a death in his family. So I have to cover his hours, as I am his supervisor and those hours are at the front desk of a retirement facility, which must always be manned, as it were.

I brought Miguel with me after his baseball practice, which lasted fifteen minutes (batting practice). Verna dropped Maya off en route to her event. At one point, Maya came up to the front desk while I was talking to a private duty aide. The aide, a nursing student at a nearby university, said, “Oh, is this your granddaughter?”

I nearly choked.

“Granddaughter?” I asked. “I’m going to have to bar you from the building.”

I know I am Senior Dad, father of a 4-year old and four weeks from turning 51, but grandfather? OK, I know it’s quite possible. Verna and I met a 43-year old woman two years ago in Cabo who has eight grandchildren. I have cousins younger than I am with grandchildren. And my brother-in-law, who isn’t yet 50, has a one-year-old granddaughter.

After I recovered from the shock of her remark, which was quite innocent, she said something about her age, 33. I quickly did the math and figured out that when I was 33 my mother was 55. So being a grandfather at 50 is entirely plausible. Too plausible for comfort. But, as Miguel is only 12, he will meet a swift and untimely demise should he bless us with his off-spring in the next few years.

The hard part about being mistaken for Maya’s grandfather is that I still think of myself as somewhat youthful. Besides being in decent shape, I run around with the kids as much as possible. I play tag in the park, chase Maya up and down the slides, play several sports with Miguel, and race Maya upstairs in order to get her to bed.

Shortly after my grandfather ouch moment, one of my colleagues said to Maya, “You love your daddy?”

Maya said, “Yes.”

“What do you like about your daddy?”

“He’s silly,” Maya said. “He makes me laugh.”

Nothing like a sweet four-year old to nearly remove the sting of the grandfather comment. Then a little while later, as I shared the grandfather incident with another colleague, a young woman who is twenty and works as a housekeeper and server in the dining hall, she said, “But you’re not that old.”

“How old do you think I am, Veronica?”

“In your 30s.”

Give that girl a major raise. Promote her to CEO.

“I’m 50,” I said. “I’ll be 51 next month.”

She looked at me and said, “No way.”

The second ouch was now completely gone, having been pummeled into submission (for the most part) by someone whose mother is only 46. Hey, I had to ask. So I was essentially saved from an evening of sulking by two females not old enough to legally drink alcohol, one of whom is in preschool and recites the ABCs to help her fall asleep at night.

As for basketball, I paid serious attention on Tuesday and am completely ready to guide the boys tonight and Saturday.

Father doesn’t always know best.

Ouch.

Armed and Dangerous

I dislocated Maya’s left elbow on Christmas Eve.

We were getting ready to go to the Farmer’s Market, but she was on the floor in her feet pajamas. She offered me her left hand so I could pick her up and change her upstairs. Instead of lifting her under her arms, I yanked her hand and she immediately started screaming.

“What, what is it?” I asked.

“You probably did something to her arm,” Verna said, maternal concern etched across her face.

No swelling, she could still move it; OK, she was writhing in pain and refused to let us near the arm, but she’s fine, I thought. I had that empty feeling in my stomach, though, a this-can’t-be-happening twinge of guilt and fear that I had done serious damage to my daughter.

I called the Kaiser advice line and the nurse scheduled an appointment with Maya’s pediatrician for 10:45 am. It was 8:30. The nurse said we didn’t need to rush to emergency because they’d only refer us to her doctor anyway.

At this point, Maya had cradled her arm against her body at a 90-degree angle as if it were in a sling. She would only sit on Verna’s or my lap. How were we going to change her into her clothes?

She cried and cried and made sure we didn’t even go near the arm. She kept the arm close to her body, but I was able to pull her sweater over to cover it. I did the same with her jacket: stuffed her right arm through and draped it over the other side.

Maya screamed and cried when I placed on her on the scale in the doctor’s office. After the assistant left, I read to Maya in the examination room. There were two books: one about Clifford and manners, another about a boy who befriends a brush that magically turns into a canine after the boy had to give his dog away. I read each of them twice before Dr. Patel rescued me, er, came in.

Dr. Patel, who has an 8-month-old, is an osteopath and a pediatrician. She started manipulating Maya’s left arm while Maya was once again screaming and crying.

“I felt something pop back into place in her elbow,” Dr. Patel said.

“So I dislocated it?”

“It’s pretty common,” she said.

More often than not, ‘nursemaid’s elbow’ occurs when a child yanks his or her hand free from his or her parent’s grasp, she said. The treatment? Ibuprofen, ice, x-rays to make sure there was no substantial damage.

“She should be fine within an hour,” the doctor said.

At each interval during the morning—in the exam room, after Dr. Patel came in, before her x-rays—Maya’s mouth quivered as she tried to hold back the tears. The nurse or medical assistant kept telling her how brave she was, so maybe she thought she had to act that way.

We sat in another exam room after the x-rays, waiting for Dr. Patel to tell us the results. Maya looked over at me and smiled.

“My arm is better, daddy.”

“Can I put your arm through your sweater?”

“Yep,” she said.

By the time Dr. Patel returned, Maya was smiling, laughing, and raising her arm as if she were in a toddler aerobics class.

Even though Maya’s injury was an accident by a parent who should have known better than try to hoist her up by her immature bones and tendons, I was worried how the medical people would react. I half-imagined child protective services rolling up to the house to take Maya away or an alarm blaring and lights flashing as I registered Maya for her appointment.

See, we have a history of injuring our children. When Miguel was about 8 weeks old, I cut one of fingers too far past the nail line and it started bleeding. And wouldn’t stop. The Kaiser nurse said to apply direct pressure. It worked.

Two months later, Miguel was lying on the bed with Verna in the bathroom about ten feet away. He rolled off and conked his head on the carpeted floor. Kaiser said to monitor him and come to the emergency room if he exhibited any signs of a concussion. About a year or so later, Miguel went to put on his rain boots that were collecting cobwebs outside, and a small rodent bit his finger. Kaiser said there was no need for a rabies shot because mice and rats were not considered dangerous.

But I knew we were on some kind of list. Legally, medical professionals and hospitals must report ‘suspicious’ incidents in order to protect the safety of all children. So after I called Kaiser about Maya I imagined the following conversation at the hospital.

“Just took another call from the Friedman-Wefald home.”

“What’d they do to Miguel this time?”

“Actually, it’s for a Maya, must be the younger sister.”

“That’s it. These people must be stopped. We must prevent them from intentionally harming yet another child. Call child welfare and the police. Stat.”

In the end, though, everything was OK. Maya showed no signs of injury at all the remainder of the day or yesterday, Christmas. She even spent part of Christmas Eve evening jumping from the couch onto pillows on the floor with her cousin Madelyn in Lafayette.

And I certainly learned my lesson. Finally. Yesterday, Maya was standing on our bed after I’d changed her diaper. She lifted her hands above her head and wanted me to grab them by her wrists so she could float to the floor.

“No, no, I can’t do that,” I said. “I have to grab you under your arms.”

“Why?” she asked. It’s her most used word.

“Because I don’t want to hurt you again.”

She smiled and said, “OK.” Then she leaned her body toward me and let me her guide her carefully off the bed.