Splinter

Cole came home yesterday with a splinter in the centre of his forehead. I remember thinking how weird and unusual it was to get a splinter in one's forehead.

I asked, "Cole, did you bump your head on something?"

"YES!" he exclaimed, relieved someone had finally asked, "Up here (pointing to his crown) on the carpet!"

"What about here?" I touched his forehead.

"No... HERE" he pointed to his red hair.

I asked if I could look at his forehead more carefully. I ran my finger over it and felt it was raised. Definitely a splinter.

"I think you have a little splinter here, Cole."

He began to wimper, "How can I have a splinter from a carpet? There was no wood on the floor!"

"I'm not sure but let me take a closer look... I'll go get my tweezers."

Cole began to cry. My husband came into the room and asked what was going on.
I filled him in. He glanced at my son's forehead from six feet away and declared that it was not a splinter. I couldn't tell if he truly believed it or he was just trying to appease the sorrowful child.

"It is a splinter," I whispered to him in the kitchen.

"It's not red and inflamed," he said.

"It's raised. I felt it."

Cole could hear us and began to sob even louder and moan, "It's NOT a SPLINTER, MOMMY! How can a splinter come from a floor that is not made of wood!? It's can't!"

So we calmed him down and ate dinner and when we were cleaning the dishes afterwards, Mark asked me, "Are you 100% sure it's a splinter?"

"95% sure," I replied.

"Then take it out while he's watching Rescue Heroes and call it something other than a splinter...."

A few minutes later, I was still trying to figure out a euphemism for splinter when my husband came back into the kitchen and quietly said, "It was a piece of dirt. I scrubbed it off with a face cloth."

Imagined dramas in our household.