Late last week I decided to take my sons swimming at my sister’s house. But before we could leave, my boys wanted to swing for a few minutes on our backyard swing set. Since they are getting older and bolder, they wanted me to push them a little higher than usual. Against my better judgment, I did. While my 6-year-old was at the highest point in the air during his swing, the rope attaching the swing to the swing set gave way and my son fell flat on his back.

I quickly scooped him up and took him inside to assess the damage. Thankfully, he seemed more shocked than physically hurt. He had a little red mark on his lower back and a couple of broken fingernails. (Which just proves that I don’t trim them often enough.) Anyway, I fretted over him for a few minutes, kissed his boo boos, and then moved on with the day.

But my clever son, clearly enjoying all of the attention and fuss I was making over him, wanted his falling out of the swing accident to be the theme of the day. He was going to let anyone and everyone know about it. And he was going to milk it for everything it was worth.

First, he needed a cookie because he fell out of the swing and hurt himself “so so so very very very badly.” His words, not mine. Cookies have magic healing powers when you’ve taken a tumble apparently. But apparently they aren’t the only thing. Toys seem to help too, according to my 6-year-old. I nixed the new toy idea quickly. There would be little boys falling out of our swing set daily if a new toy was the end result. So I said yes to the cookie and no to the toy.

Meanwhile, when we pulled into my sister’s driveway, my son reminded me to tell my sister and her family about his very scary incident. But I didn’t have to - he wasted no time the minute we walked into her front door. My little sympathy seeker sure knew how to work a room, let me tell ya. And he received all of the ooohs and ahhhs and worried expressions he was looking for. After his few minutes of uninterrupted attention, he was ready to move on for awhile. That is until his daddy got home and the whole process started over. I can’t say I really blame him for his attention seeking behavior because there will come a day when mom is the only one who will still notice his boo boos.