We had a block party on Saturday with a bounce house (and a dead pig, pictured).

The kids stayed in the bounce house for most of the party. Now that he’s 4, I felt okay with letting Sam be (unlike in years past when I watched him like a hawk).

Occasionally, I would peek in to check in on him. This only caused me severe anxiety.

Policing a bounce house is an exercise in futility. It’s a bounce house. Kids bounce and bump into one another. That is what makes it fun.

There would be some instances when I would look in and he would be flopping around and I would be convinced he had broken his spine and was passed out and paralyzed. But then he would pop up and start bouncing again.

Every now and again, the parents would hear a wail and we would extract a crying child. They would be brushed off and in they would go again.

At one point, Sam tussled with one of his friends who (accidentally or not) hit him hard on the nose. He cried but didn’t want to get out of the bounce house so I let him be. (I did give the stink eye to his friend.)

A few hours later, someone else tussled with him. But this time, blood started gushing from his nose. Gushing. I think he was more scared about the blood than  actually hurt. Nat carried him inside where we tended to him.

We gingerly pulled off his shirt and shorts and stopped up the blood. I quickly washed his clothing and changed his outfit. The crying lessened as did the blood and eventually he stopped. I asked him what he wanted to do: Watch a show or go back to the bounce house. He picked the bounce house.

Sam isn’t a rough and tumble kid. He’s pretty contained and self-preserved. He doesn’t get hurt very much. As he never puts himself in a position to get dinged.

So, to be honest, I was more proud of him than worried. It wasn’t a broken limb or a sprained ankle. It was just a dinged up nose. And he made it through.

Even better? He slept in until 7 a.m. the next morning. (Although I did check on him at 6 a.m. when he didn’t wake up to make sure he didn’t bleed out during the night.)