When I was in preschool, I distinctly remember one cold
Newfoundland day when a little boy cut himself.
The teachers went to the closet where the Band-Aids were and THERE WEREN’T
ANY.
No Band-Aids?
This was a disaster. We
kiddos began to be worried. What to do? No matter, the teachers assured us, there
must be some in the desk. No? We children looked at each other fearfully,
and watched as blood ran down our friend’s leg.
There is another closet, don’t worry, the teachers began using louder
and louder voices. By this time, panic
had ensued, and many of us began to cry.
We must have a Band-Aid. He’s bleeding. BLEEDING! With REAL blood!
One teacher announced, “Well, if we can’t find a Band-Aid,
we’ll MAKE a Band-Aid.”
You can do that? We paused in our sympathetic sobs and
wondered how this was even possible.
“Here, little ones, gather ‘round and pay attention. You may
have to do this someday,” the teacher said.
She got into the big, big first aid kit for Dire Emergencies,
where they had already looked for real Band-Aids, found some gauze and a tin of adhesive
tape. She held it up to a hushed crowd. Then, while we watched with eyes the size of
fried eggs, she proceeded with great aplomb and flourishes to cut a piece of
gauze the very same size as a
Band-Aid, and pulled off a piece of adhesive tape and snipped it expertly, so
that it looked like our old familiar wonderful, healing Band-Aids. She gently applied it, gave to boy a hug, and
the entire preschool sighed in relief.
Crisis averted. The boy was not
going to have his leg fall off, nor was he going to be carted off bleeding to
death.
This brilliant woman had forestalled a major emergency of
catastrophic proportions that day. In
the opinions of us wee ones, she deserved medals and crowns. With sparkles.
Fast forward a million years to the present, when we graylings
have preschoolers coming to spend the day with us. Believe me, I’ve got plenty of Band-Aids,
including the sought after Frozen Anna/Elsa ones. I’ve got boo-boo frogs, Elmo Ice Packs, cuddly
animals, and every sort of thing a bumbling three-year-old might want.
Oh, we have our fair share of bumps and knocks, but the
grandtwins are pretty resilient. Their
mother has called up “Up-a-dee!” when they fall, or “Good one!” when they run
into each other. They have a quick cry,
want a hug, and they’re off running.
It was the Ice Monster that got them. In Frozen.
If you haven’t seen that ubiquitous movie, look here:
Scary, huh? Then we
pulled out an old book, Sleeping Beauty, and oh my, there is a dragon. Band-Aids were not going to help, and one of
them was so frightened by the Ice Monster and dragon that tears and hiding were
necessary. This went on for some time, and it was obvious that helpless hiding
was not solving the issue.
C’mon out! Ice
Monsters know not with whom they deal here.
No Ice Monster can withstand (dramatic pause) the purple Hair Dryer! Ah ha! Come with me.
Look in here. Third drawer. Anytime you need it, you just come in here
and get it. If you want, we can melt a
whole ice cube to see what will happen to ice.
And that Dragon? I’ve
got Dragon Weapons in the Halloween Box.
This! This, my friends is The
Sword of Valor, once taken from a pirate.
Plastic notwithstanding, it gleams!
You want to know how to make The Shield of Truth? You have come to the right house! You don’t get to be an adult without being
able to pass the class in how to make Shields of Truth. So you better learn now. You must have a pie tin that’s been used to
make a real apple pie. The pie has to have been made by someone who loves the
people that will eat it. Then you must
use a gold ribbon that has once been wrapped around a present. It can’t be a hair ribbon, it must be a
present ribbon. Now, tape that around!
Look. What you have here, my
little valiant soldiers, is a real, honest Shield of Truth.
Now, when one of the twins wants to read the Frozen book for the 10,678,592nd
time, the other one says, “Just a minute, I be right back,” and runs to the
bathroom, where in the third drawer is the Greatest Weapon of All Time. Meanwhile, the first twin pulls out The Sword of Valor from
the book box where it now stays for such emergencies, and slips the Shield of
Truth on. Thus armed, they venture forth
to do battle with foes of fear, and come out the victor.
Just today, I asked them if they wanted to go get the
hairdryer and Jack said, “I don’t need that anymore.”
Everybody needs to overcome villains in their life. It helps to have just the right sort of
supplies to help you. So be sure to pay
attention, little ones, you may be making them for someone someday.
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