B is for Band Aid

When I was a kid, we had tan band aids. Some were big, some were small, some were round, some were rectangles, some were squares, but they were all tan. 

They've come a long way since then.

Oh, the shapes are still basically the same, but tan? No kid wears tan band aids, not when there are Sponge Bob and Ninja Turtles, Barbie and Hello Kitty. (My husband has gone to work more than once with a Scooby Doo band aid covering where he cut himself shaving.)

At preschool, we usually keep a pretty good stock of fun band aids on hand, as boo boos, real and imaginary, are instantly made better with one. But last week, not long after arrival time, one of my pre-k girls knocked a scab off (gross, I know, but it could be worse; it's PRESCHOOL) and needed a band aid. 

As luck would have it, all my fun band aids were gone, and I was left with, yes, tan ones. I apologized to the little girl, telling her all I had right now was a plain one. She looked at me and said, "Well, you could draw a smiley face on it, you know." 

Brilliant!

I drew a face on the band aid with a Sharpie, put it on her boo boo, and she went on her merry way, showing the other kids her band aid with the face drawn on by Miss Dyanne.

Moments later, another of my girls came up to me, holding up her hand and showing me a little cut between her thumb and finger. I drew another smiley face on another tan band aid and put it on her hand without questioning what happened, assuming it was an old injury and that she just wanted to be a member of the smiley face band aid club.

Fast forward to later that evening. My assistant teacher ran into the girl and her mother at dance class, and the mom, who had noticed the smiley face band aid on her daughter, asked my assistant (out of curiosity only - she was in no way upset or accusatory) how her daughter had cut her finger at school, since the girl was very vague about how it had happened, but the band aid was pretty bloody by the time the mom saw it that evening. My assistant told her she hadn't done it at school, because we hadn't even used scissors and don't have anything else that could have cut her.

When the little girl came out of dance class, my assistant called her over and innocently asked her how she had cut her finger. Not knowing her mother was standing behind her, the girl said, "Welllll, I didn't tell my mom, but I had a knife out at home this morning and I cut myself...."

Busted.

The good news is (a) she didn't do it on MY watch; (b) she didn't bleed on anything, thanks to my smiley face band aid; and (c) she and her mom had a nice Come to Jesus talk about playing with knives.

Look for my line of custom band aids to come out in the fall.*

*shut up, it could happen