My dearest daughter is not stoic.  Yesterday she slammed her thumb in the door of the car.  Did you hear the screams all the way over there?  If you had been listening very carefully you probably could have.  She does not tolerate pain well.  Or blood.  There was a lot of blood.  We had just arrived at our German friend's house for mom's birthday party.  We burst into the house with Grace hysterical, blood dripping onto the floor, me carrying all of our school bags, birthday gift, coats etc.and saying "Emergency, Emergency!"  The room was full of happy party moms and kids who all stopped at stared and poor B, (the birthday girl), looked traumatized.  She is very good in emergencies though, as she hustled Grace into the kitchen, put her hand under cold water, got an ice pack and towel.  I bandaged her up and gave her an ibuprofen and sent her off sniveling and whining with her friends.  Later I learned that the reason B had looked so shocked, (and gotten hold of an icepack so quickly), is because her son had just pushed down one of the other kids giving him a big black eye.  Not a good way to start a party.  But all went well from there on.  There was lots of cake and wine, cheeses and breads.  The husbands all showed up about 2 hours later by which time we were all half way in the bag.  Today Grace has a big raw, purple thumb and she will probably lose the nail.  She had her last tennis lesson of the year and couldn't do backhands but still managed to beat the boys!  xxoo me