A blood surge

Bam! In one second my boy went down. I was watching him and clapping as he maneuvered himself around on his oversized tricycle. As I moved into the kitchen my eyes left him for ONE second. I knew the reason he had fallen was because he craved his Daddy's attention. I ran over and noticed the tricycle was on its side. Zee was in a bad way as his face lay planted on the marble floor. I quickly assessed his little cranium for trauma and then I noticed the blood gushing from his tiny mouth. I tried to remember CPR, my EMT classes, my breathing techniques. My boy was bleeding a lot. I observed his mouth. I noticed his little teeth had nearly gone through his upper lip but they were intact. I focused on keeping my voice calm while Zee looked to me for help. I hugged him close as I tried to apply pressure - he wouldn’t have it. I place an ice cube to his lip but to no avail. I tried a frozen banana, licking it to entice him, as I kept trying to apply pressure as the blood dripped onto the floor, soaked my shirt. I filled a cup of cold water in desperation and put it to his swelling lip. Zee swallowed some as the remaining water turned red. “Thank goodness!” I thought. But the blood kept flowing. I quickly rang Vanessa to see when she would be home. I didn’t want to alarm her but I thought it might be time to get our boy to a medical facility. I found a glass jar of popcorn kernels and shook it to take Zee’s mind off the pain. It worked and he started to play with it. The blood surge started to subside. My breathing became less like a sprint and more like a marathon. Zee looked at me with the biggest fat lip I have ever seen. Mom arrived shortly. I warned her about looking at the lip. She gasped at the sight and my heart felt as if it was stabbed. Zee had settled down and made the signal to Vanessa for the breast. Vanessa and I feared it would be too painful for him to feed and it might create a negative association. We were wrong…fortunately. Zee took to the breast as if nothing had happened. Vanessa and I looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.
Later, at the medical facility, as Zee flirted with the woman at the front desk I reminded myself that there will be more of these bang ups. The woman at the front desk handed me a card with a name on it. It read Master Zee Dickey. I realized my boy had graduated. He was no longer our little Zee or our little Bear. He is now our Master Zee….with a fat lip.