Julie Jay: Parents, like doctors, should take blood in their stride

A catalogue of recent calamities has left me feeling like I am a card-carrying member of the Royal College of Surgeons

Julie Jay: "When I enquired what had happened to Number One, I was told he had walked into a bin — an occupational hazard of professional dance. Number Two, it materialised, had fallen while outside the dance class."

Years ago, I befriended a young Italian student whose English was brilliant, but she enlisted me to help her with prepositions — the one part of the language on which she was a little lacking.

Despite having a third-level degree in English, a postgrad, and ostensibly a Tefl qualification, which cost me the whopping sum of €75, my first step in teaching this lovely girl about prepositions was to find out what a preposition was. 

I had no idea about the mechanics of grammar, and to this day, I still break out in a sweat when a student asks me the difference between the progressive and perfect tenses.

At some point, I decided a trip to the cinema would be a suitable class outing for us both, but sadly, my film of choice proved wildly terrifying, and my lovely Italian spent virtually the entire movie hiding behind her hands.

Afterwards, I apologised, and she explained that it was fine, she just hated blood ... which would have been completely understandable but for the fact that she was a medical student.

Like doctors, parents should take a little blood in their stride. I’m only five years in, and already I have applied more bandages to tiny arms and legs than Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. 

Did I just compare parenting to nursing on the frontlines? Yes, and before you say it, I know how ridiculous that is, because nurses get breaks.

Just this week alone, the kids have been dropping like flies. The first day of calamity upon calamity unfolded when the kids’ dad took the two children to Number One’s hip-hop lesson. 

The three of them returned an hour later, with Number Two, the toddler, bearing a bandage across his forehead, while Number One had the makings of a black eye. 

When I enquired what had happened to Number One, I was told he had walked into a bin — an occupational hazard of professional dance. Number Two, it materialised, had fallen while outside the dance class, momentarily interrupting the booming sounds of Bruno Mars as his voice echoed around the rehearsal room.

Their dad was understandably a bit shaken from it all, having not realised that hip-hop was such a dangerous sport. 

The truth is, I was fairly unperturbed because part of being a parent now is being a card-carrying member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Over the summer, I had already endured a harrowing incident where Number One’s head made contact with the door of a car boot.

I still couldn’t tell you exactly what happened. 

I’m still slightly traumatised from it all, but at some point, when closing the car boot, Number One had leaned over to inspect the contents of a shopping bag, and it was only when he let out a blood-curdling howl that my brain computed what had just happened. 

The metal door had hit his scalp. The blood came thick and fast, and I sped down to the medical centre immediately, in utter shock. 

Thankfully, our family nurse was on hand to apply some steri-stitches, but the whole incident was nothing short of horrifying.

As a result, I took the toddler returning from hip-hop bleeding from the head reasonably in my stride, all things considered, but still popped up to the chemist to make sure no stitches were needed — such are the benefits of living in Dingle city centre.

Two days later, I received a call from Number One’s school informing me that he had fallen in the yard and once again his head had come into unfortunate contact with something pretty unpleasant — this time, the tarmac.

The teacher on the phone couldn’t have been nicer and allayed my fears of it being anything serious, but equally, there was a mark and a bump on his forehead, and maybe it would be best to collect him.

By the time I had landed at the school, Number One had been ushered into the VIP area, also known as the kitchen. I braced myself for a bit of a bloodbath, but thankfully, though he was certainly sporting a sizeable bump, it wasn’t too bad an injury.

I was glad they had called, as when I asked Number One how many fingers I was holding up, worryingly, he replied “20”.

That said, his cheeky grin throughout this exchange had me suspicious, and the feeling that this had been a bit of a ruse was only cemented when he requested a hot chocolate and some telly, insisting “I think Bluey will make my head better”.

Thankfully, his dad was at home to look after the little faker, whose condition miraculously improved once he had been handed a mug topped with marshmallows.

As I head back to my own school, it starts to rain, and I recall that I am covering yard duty for a colleague today. I am about to feel sorry for myself when I remember that jobs-wise, things could always be worse — I could be working as a doctor who hates blood.