today sebastian’s class had a field trip. i have a streaming cold and my voice is a la demi moore and my nose is drip drip dripping. we went to view some of hong kong’s tallest skyscrapers and then the kids demolished icecream and biscuits while the adults gratefully gulped tea and coffee. back on ground floor the teacher then gave each child a biro and a piece of paper and instructed them to draw the buildings they had seen.

sebastian drew a helicopter, the smoke from the star ferry, the waves, and the four seasons (the hotel not the pizza), the ivc tower (i always write ivf tower…habit??) and a few others, then we handed in his masterpiece to miss rupa and he ambled over toward the fountains. it was spitting outside. seb jumped up and started trotting around the marble that surrounds the fountains. "sebastian" i said in a polite, low voice, "get down please" you know, the first warning, modulated voice. there were other grownups present, you understand.

he continued trotting, backback jouncing merrily.

"sebastian!" i barked, in a violent sort of way.

it was at this point that sebastian invariable slipped on the wet marble and smacked his head on the marble, then tumbled off the marble on to the floor (only 1.5 feet). he lay there for a minute, while the kids and mums did a collective, "ohhhhhh!" and then got up and wailing came over to me. i made sure that his pupils were even, asked him to touch his nose with his finger, and then started in on him. however, my tirade , which included words like, "reason…mummy’s….no….prevent….accident….listen…" was cut short when i saw that sebastians hand was red.

for a second i wondered if the red biro he had been using had exploded in his hand. oh ho ho. not quite.

i pulled him closer to me and looked behind his head and saw that is was sliced open. blood was pouring down his neck and was caught up in his hair.

i called to one of the other mums, "can you come here for a minute please?"

and she did.

i am so impressed by mothers during a crisis. one mother wiped off sebastian’s hand saying, "he shouldn’t see the blood". another took off a bandage dipped it in the fountain and wiped away the blood. another bandage was placed over the wound, while a bandaid was placed over that to staunch the bloodflow. another mum said to divert the sobbing seb, "i think you’ll be well enough for your party, don’t you seb?" and of course he said, "yes, i will!"

we got into the taxi and headed to the hospital. seb was very quiet and the taxi driver was swearing at the thought of blood staining his already filthy taxi. to tone him out, sebastian and i prayed in the taxi together, and sebastian prayed to Father God that the pain would go away quickly and that he would be okay.

after one hour in emergency, he got three stitches. i watched them give him the stitches and was very impressed with the job they did.

but on the way home, as i was giving sebastian the talk about listening to mummy and how if he had done so this wouldn’t have happened, and how mummy’s say NO to things not because we’re mean and no fun, but because things are UNSAFE, sebastian said, "you’re right mummy".

and i said (immensely gratified), "you mean it? you know that it was unsafe and that’s why i said no?"

and he responded, "yes mummy, i do. there was a gun in the bottom of the fountain and you were trying to protect me from it."

why do i bother???