I Simply Remember my Favorite Things

and then I don't feel sooooo bad!

On Saturday upon returning from the movies with the girls, life was already happening at the Reynolds house and it continued to happen despite what the birthday girls were doing.

Our dear Benjamin has been awaiting a particular baseball card to arrive in the mail for a couple of weeks now. Ben gets really excited, I mean really excited about baseball.  He discovered there was a card worth $5.00 and he found someone online selling it for .75.  A bargain of course!  So, with his allowance he made the purchase and started checking for it in the mail every day after the order was placed.  Saturday was no different.  I came home and he was waiting anxiously for the mail key which I happily handed over to him.  He took off on his skateboard and was gone for about 5 minutes.  I was in the kitchen when he came home and he was limping and crying.  I told him to try and stop crying and reminded him that he is to conduct himself like a young man even when no one is watching.  He then proceeds to tell me that a dog had bit him.  This changed my response quite a bit, from being the instructive mother, to being a protective mother.  I rolled down his sock and there on the back of his ankle was a nasty wound from a dog!  I was livid and yelled to Jake what had just happened.  He went out into the neighborhood to track down the dog.  He had found the dog and the owner of the dog.  The owner was rather non-chalant about the whole thing. When Jake came home he phoned the PMO, basically the base police.  They arrived soon after and took a look at Benjamin's ankle.  They immediately suggested we have it looked it by a paramedic.  We weren't going to bring him in to the hospital because even though the wound was deep the skin hadn't broken yet.  You could see teeth marks and the release point of the dogs teeth from where he'd fallen off the skateboard he'd been cruising on.  Of course upon the urging of PMO we agreed to have the paramedics come take a look.  They came in all of their emergency glory along with the fire department. The police spoke to the neighbor and examined the dog's records. Praise the Lord that the Rabies vaccinations for the dog were all up to date.  Benjamin was extremely brave in his response as he was interviewed by the the police more than once.  He sat in his chair eating a large bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream with his ankle wrapped in ice bravely telling of how the dog, "bolted from the common area and bit his ankle." He then fell off the board and tried to get back on it when the dog charged him again.  It wasn't until he picked up the board to carry it home that the dog left him alone.  Apparently the dog had been off leash and out of its home most of the day and the dog has got a fear of skateboards... Last time we checked this was a family neighborhood not one that's run by the dogs who live here.

Later when I was talking to Benjamin he told me, "I'm so glad my baseball card didn't come in the mail when that dog bit me, because when he did bite me, I dropped the mail and my card might have been damaged."  I was proud of Benjamin for remembering his favorite things and trying to "see the good" in the situation.  

We had a follow up appointment with the Doctor and he reminded us of how lucky Benjamin was. Though he has a lot of bruising and will have scarring there are no secondary infections at the bite site and we are very thankful.

Benjamin did have a strange dream after the incident and we don't think it's an effect from the bite.  He dreamed that, "I was at Target spending my gift card from my Meme and Poppy.  I wanted to buy a game boy with my money, but instead of game boys, they were trying to 'issue' me wives.  One of them was yellow, and one had a carrot crown.  They were little short girls about 15 years old, mom." I laughed out loud at that Benjamite dream..  Very funny. I shouldn't be concerned or should I?