"I am stuck on
Band-Aid (brand) 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me!"
That little jingle has received continuous play for the last
50 years. Odds are if you have ever watched television during a commercial, you
have seen and heard it. Here's another "The More You Know" fact about
the Band-Aid jingle; it was originally penned by Barry Manilow. Yes, I am
referring to the same guy who sang 'Copacabana' (Also, that's the only Manilow
song I know).
More random facts about Band-Aid. The brand itself began in
1920 when a Johnson & Johnson employee invented it so that his
accident-prone wife could dress her cooking-based wounds on her own. Band-Aids
received cartoon characters and designs for the first time in 1951. Also, World
War II led to a explosion in popularity for the product as millions were
shipped overseas. Johnson & Johnson estimates that well over 100 million
have been sold to date.
Two more tidbits that I should add. All of this information
was provided by Wikipedia so it might be suspect at best. Second, this matters
because of Ellie's deep, never-ending love of Band-Aids.
This will come as no shock to anyone who has ever had a
toddler, but Ellie is extremely accident-prone. She constantly trips over her
own feet or someone else's. I would like to state here, for the record, that I
am not intentionally tripping my three-year-old. There are times when she's
being a punk and I want to laugh at her falling down, but I am not the primary
culprit.
Anyway, all it takes is a quick glance at Ellie's arms and
legs to prove my point about her being accident-prone. Currently, she has no
fewer than four bruises on her legs, three cuts/scrapes on her knees, and an
enormous "boo-boo" on her elbow. In fact, it's the aforementioned
enormous "boo-boo" on her elbow that brings us here today.
This particular injury was the result on an unfortunate
frisbee incident at my grandmother's Independence Day party. While playing with
Ellie, I encouraged her to "Go long." Unfortunately, she interpreted
that as "Run across the gravel driveway as fast as you can." One
thing led to another and she wiped out in the driveway resulting in blood
spewing from a brand new gash in her elbow. Whenever your toddler suffers this
kind of egregious injury, there is only one thing you can do. Clean the wound
up and lovingly apply a Band-Aid.
Just so you know, there are no mystical healing powers
associated with a Band-Aid. However, you can't tell Ellie that. She spent the
weekend fully convinced that her arm would fall off (I'm guessing) if we removed
the Band-Aid. For the record, Ellie only allowed us to change it once in five
days.
This morning, Bethany and I decided that today had to be the
day the Band-Aid came off. For one thing, we wanted to make sure the wound
wasn't infected. We also wanted the air to get to it to help with healing. The
problem is that Ellie didn't see eye to eye with us on that plan. Any time we
even went near her elbow, we were met with screaming protests. "Don't
touch my Band-Aid. No, no, no!"
Finally, our plan to slowly remove the
Band-Aid was concocted. Anytime Ellie wasn't looking, we would peel slightly at
the corner until it just fell off. While this seemed like a good plan, it was
ultimately destined to fail.
As Ellie sat on the bed in Ethan's room this morning, I sat
down next to her and began talking to Bethany while she fed Ethan. As Ellie
looked at her mom, I slowly reached over and grabbed a corner of the Band-Aid,
beginning to lift. Before I could do anything, Ellie screeched and quickly
pulled her arm away. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for her, the Band-Aid
decided to stay in my hand and not on her arm. The end result of this? Louder
and more intense screeching.
At least one thing could be learned from this day by Ellie.
Despite the promises of the iconic jingle, Band-Aids are not made to be stuck
on a person permanently. That's a lesson that should 'stick' with her for quite
some time, right? #DaddyWrite
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