Andy's been bumping his head into a lot of things lately, and on Sunday, he cracked his forehead pretty good against the corner of my desk. Starting to get concerned about brain damage, like any good, non-neurotic mother would, I carried him into the bathroom and got out the First Aid kit. I put two triple A batteries into the pen shaped flashlight, shone the light into his eyes, and looked for.... I realized I didn't know what I was looking for, just that I had seen doctors and paramedics do that before (on TV, of course) when severe brain trauma was suspected. I shone the light in first his right, then his left eye, then waved the light back and forth between the two, first quickly, then slowly, then to the rhythm of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." I could determine nothing further other than the fact that Andy was extremely irritated at me for trying a burn a hole through his retinas with a light beam.

It occurred to me, as I gave up and tossed the pen light into the bathroom junk drawer, that perhaps I may have been using it properly after all. "If victim gets mad at you during use, his brain is most likely okay."