The Traitor Tree

Remember my favorite tree? Well, it went rogue on me today and threw my child out of it. Thankfully, and I do thank God for this, he was not seriously injured, although he should have been.

The scene: Little J and Big J were climbing in it, I had just gotten in from jogging so I went inside for a drink and to think about starting dinner, JC was working on a bike. (Little Man was taking a late nap).

I am inside, but the door is open and all the sudden I hear a little scream and a thud, thud, thud, coinciding with an "Oh!!" kind of yell and a bunch of commotion. I knew what had happened before I was even out the door. And from piecing all the details and vantage points together from all parties involved, here is the story as close as I can tell:

Little J has been being ever braver and climbing higher and higher each time he gets in the tree. And when I say higher, I'm talking at least a good 15 feet up there, if not more. See in this picture where the top of our roof coincides with the tree? That's about how high he has been climbing to. He decided he wanted to go even higher and started to get up into the skinny branches way up at the top. Big J told him they would not hold him. Right then, Little J steps on a small branch and it breaks, causing him to fall. JC says he looked up and saw him falling through the branches (he was the yell), getting tossed around like a little rag doll. He even skidded over Big J's head, that happened to be facing down because he was flipped over upside down. After he made it through the branches, he fell the remaining 5 feet or so flat to the ground, on his back.

By the time I got out there, he was laying on the ground pale as a sheet and breathing all crazy and crying. He never lost consciousness, he wasn't bleeding, and he wasn't screaming in pain. He was winded, and obviously frightened, and his back and head were scratched up and bruised. Once he calmed down a little, he could talk and told us his head and his left side hurt. He wasn't confused, his pupils were reacting, he could squeeze my hand and all that, but we still took him into the emergency room just to be sure. They checked him out and had him pee in a cup to make sure there wasn't any trauma to his kidneys since he said his side hurt, and then two hours later we walked out. The doctors were kind of amazed that he was as fine as he was, especially falling from that high.

I'm sure he is going to be very sore tomorrow, and I know how close he was to being seriously hurt is beyond him. He told Big J, "You should get hurt and go to the hospital because you get all these cool treats!" as he showed him his sticker, his ice bag, his bag of cookies and a water bottle.

I am so thankful he was watched over. And I'm thankful that I didn't actually see him fall because I would have been freaking out beyond usefulness.