Those dreadful calls from school

"Hello, is this Tristan Ong's mummy? I am calling from XX School......"

As it turned out, Tristan fell down with abrasions on both his elbows during recess last week and hence the call from the school's General Office (GO) in the late morning. He did not cry when it happened, the helpful ladies at the GO cleaned his wounds and he continued his lessons.

Yesterday, papa received the dreadful call from the GO again at 10-ish and this time it was K who has fallen down and was hit on the back of his head by a soccer ball during recess. He felt giddy and was given an ice pack and observed for a while in the GO. His form teacher called back subsequently again as he was still feeling giddy.

As a result, papa and mummy rushed to school and brought him to the Childrens' Emergency at KK. It was a weekday morning and hence KK was not as crowded compared to the nights and weekend crowd we have witnessed before. K was observed and checked by the young medical officer and cleared after 3 hours. He seemed fine when we picked him up at school as he was able to answer our questions even though he said his head was heavy. Although not entirely relieved, we did feel somewhat better after the initial panic and shock from the school's calls.

During the observation, he was watching TV, monitoring time, asking for food/lunch and claimed that he was bored. When he overheard the doctor's instructions of no food and drink for the patient who was being warded beside him, he turned and told mummy that he did not want to be hospitalised and was feeling slightly better.

While K was resting at the GO yesterday, he met T, who had accompanied his injured classmate to the GO. Between the both of them, they have probably made close to 10 visits to the GO since school started this year for various reasons - for minor injuries during recess, accompanying their injured friends/classmates and for lost and found items. We could just imagine the repeated pushing and pulling of the GO's doors during the 1.5 hours of recess time on a daily basis. Besides their paperwork, the ladies at the GO must be very pre-occupied with these kids, especially our boys!

Well, boys are boys with their testosterone and all. We reckoned falls and knocks are part and parcel of their growing up process but we always keep our fingers crossed that there will be no "hard" ones.