According to my son, his name isn’t Callan Low. It’s Lightyear. Buzz Lightyear, Space Commander, sworn enemy of the evil Emperor Zurg. We just call him Buzz for short.
From the minute the three-year-old with the vivid imagination first encountered Mr Lightyear, he’s been saving the planet on a daily basis. Since this invariably involves jumping from a great height shouting ‘To infinity and beyond’, the rest of the family live in a state of constant fear – husband and I are terrified that he’ll hurt himself, while Brad (nearly two) is terrified that his superhero brother will land on him.
We’ve had many near tragedies since Callan became Buzz. He recently leapt from the top of a flight of stairs, accompanied by the mandatory yell of, ‘To infinity and beeeeeeeeeee…’ That was as far as he got before he landed halfway down and, by some miracle, survived with only a bruised bottom to show for the adventure.
A few days later, he jumped into a swimming pool, uttering the same war cry. He neglected to notice that Buzz doesn’t come complete with armbands and a dinghy, and we had to fish him out before he sank like an intergalactic stone.
But a couple of nights ago we had our biggest adventure yet. We thought our home was relatively Buzz-safe – locked doors, reinforced furniture, bouncy carpets. However, we neglected to remove a lethal weapon from the bathroom: the towel rail. Apparently, the universe was in jeopardy again and the only thing that could save it was Buzz swinging on the towel rail, before doing a triple-back summersault and ending up sprawled on the bathroom floor. Did I mention that his head struck the metal toilet roll holder on the way down? Bog roll one, Buzz Lightyear nil.
The screams had us galloping to the bathroom and I nearly fainted at the sight. There was so much blood it looked like he’d ruptured a main artery. I turned him around to see a crater the size of a small planet on the back of his skull. Actually it was a gash about an inch long, but I was in drama/panic mode and convinced he had only minutes to live.
We bundled a bemused Brad and a hysterical Buzz into the car and raced to the hospital.
‘To the infirmary and beyond…’
Naturally, by the time we got there, Buzz was completely back to normal and, other than the red stuff oozing from his skull, looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. Apparently, space commanders have supernatural powers of recovery. Meanwhile, my heart was still thumping like a hut door in a hurricane and the fright had put me into such a state of hypertension that I sounded like I’d been sniffing helium.
The hospital checked us in and directed us to wait in the seated area. Two hours later, it was me who was climbing the walls. Not because I was still panicking over the health of my firstborn, but because he’d made such a rapid recovery that he was chasing his wee brother (now renamed The Evil Emperor Zurg) around the room and was in danger of causing yet another injury. By the time the doctor called us in, all shreds of sympathy had vanished and I was ready to ground Buzz for the rest of his life.
The doc examined his wound carefully. And can I just point out at this stage that not all ER doctors look like George Clooney. Not that I minded, because I had hair like a burst couch, no make-up on, was dressed in my pyjamas and covered in blood. But we definitely didn’t get George. We got that bloke from Hellraiser.
‘Needs a few stitches,’ he declared. No problem, I thought. A few stitches are nothing to a superhero. Then I saw the doc loading the local aesthetic into a syringe that was so huge it looked like it was designed for horses. Buzz saw it too. Who knew action figures could retreat so quickly?
The doctor administered several jabs to the back of the head, while I tried my best to utter soothing words. As the needle went in, I did what I always do when the kids are scared, upset or sleepy – I decided to sing a song. Only my mind was blank. I couldn’t think of a single lyric except… ‘Jingle Bells’. Picture the scene. An impatient doctor trying to administer an anaesthetic to a wriggling child, while a demented mother with tears blinding her, clutches on to her son’s ears and sings ‘Jingle Bells’ at the top of her voice. In the middle of March.
I tried to reassure my boy. ‘Almost done, baby, almost done, you’re such a brave boy, oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh…’
Almost done? I could have run up a new set of curtains in the time it took Hellraiser to insert three stitches in my frenzied superhero’s head.
Finally it was finished, and the doctor gladly fled the scene, leaving the lovely nurse to dress the wound. She wrapped a bandage around my warrior’s head and the minute I saw it my stomach sank. Buzz Lightyear was gone, but in his place we had Rambo.
Thankfully, he didn’t need further treatment; although we are avoiding the local parks for fear that he’ll indulge in a spot of jungle warfare or attempt to take a parkie hostage.
However, my recovery from the trauma has been slower and required a repeat prescription for a large bottle of plonk.
‘To oblivion and beyond…’