Blood all over the bathroom (July 10)

Nothing prepares you for how different two siblings can be until you see it firsthand with your own children. I mean, I’m one of four kids and I lived the experience of having siblings that I had virtually nothing in common with (except my sister; she rules). But I assumed that was some kind of fluke, like the combination of my parents’ DNA creating 4 humans that weren’t all that similar was the exception rather than the rule. Now that I have my own children, I’m starting to figure out that nature has a sense of humor. Like nature saying “hey, I gave you one kid who is a complete asshole but I won’t give you two!”

Take Lily and Nora for example. If Lily has blood on her, comes near it, smells it, or senses that there is blood within a few hundred feet of her, there is a 75% chance a freak out is coming our way. And I get it! Blood is weird. It’s your body’s way of saying “some shit is going sideways here”.

But Nora? Nora is a solemn, stoic little machine. This morning I came out of our bedroom at 530 in the morning to head to a meeting. I walked past the girls’ bathroom assuming it would be empty but Nora was standing in front of the mirror wiping something from her face. “Makeup this early?” I uttered to Nora (they love nothing more than to play with make up at odd hours. Girls man). She turned to look at me and what I thought was makeup was in fact blood. She had a wash cloth in her hand. Blood all over it. There was a trail of blood leading out of the bathroom back to her bedroom and blood on her pillow case. It wasn’t exactly the scene from a Quentin Tarrantino movie but it was more blood than I’ve seen since I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand 10 years ago trying to pit an avocado. And yet she didn’t wake us up, didn’t ask for help, didn’t really say much of anything other than “I had this big booger and then blood just starting coming out”. Turns out it was just a bloody nose so I asked if she needed any help and she said she was fine. So I went off to my meeting and when I saw her an hour later, it was like nothing had ever happened. Except I still need to figure out how to get the blood out of the carpet. 😂