Falling Through The Ice

Once again I am faced with a short issue that feels much longer.

My darling son, the one who has started to look more and more like James 

Dean or John Lennon with dishwater blond hair, has made me remember why

being a mom can be a bad thing.  Yesterday my son went for a walk.  He

does this on occasion.  We are trying to let him feel like he has some
measure of independence and as long as he stays on the campus we feel
okay about his safety.  However, he is an explorer. He is an adventurer.
He is the kind of child who likes to go and see if what you say is true.
Recently we have had a cold spell here in Xinzheng. It has been about
3-13 degrees outside at night especially.  It can get up to 30 or
sometimes even higher now that the weather is warming. But that means
that we have had snow. We have had ice. 

It has been cold.  Near our home there is a man made waterfall. It is a
little pleasant river that runs from the campus to the actual river that
runs through our campus.  The children are not allowed to play near the
waterfall. It is a very pretty thing but there are two problems with it.
 
First, while the campus is under construction the work men use it as a
toilet area.  (This is a big issue...I may have mentioned it before).  
Second,  The river water is frozen but not solidly.  The ice is thin and
you can see under it.  When my darling oldest son decided to go for a
walk alone yesterday, he chose to go against the wishes of his parents
and visit the waterfall.  And although we have explained the dangers of
the ice...how it is not all frozen, how it can break and people can fall
under it, how if they fall through it they can get really sick and even
die....although we have explained the dangers, our oldest son chose to
go for a walk out on the ice.  We were not with him.  He had told us
that he was walking up to the panda forest and would stay on the
sidewalks.  And low...He fell through the ice.

We are blessed.  The water came up to neck height and he was able to get
out of the river and back home.  When he got home he snuck in so that no
one could see him.  (I was teaching class and Bill was in the bathroom)
My husband came out and set up a show for the kids to watch. He asked
our son if he wanted to join the family and watch the movie.  Our son
refused the invitation from his room.  So there he stood for 40 minutes
in his wet clothes hiding the fact that he was all wet and watching the
movie from the doorway so he would not be seen.  Finally he was seen.
My husband rushed him in to the bathroom and cleaned him up and when
asked for an explanation to his soaking wet state he replied "someone
threw a bucket of water on me". 

I asked to see his shoes and his slippers and I noticed that they
were more than a little wet, more than a lot wet. They were soaked clear
through. 

So I sat him down and asked for an explanation.  He kept trying to get
out of it. And I told him that it was more important for him to tell us
the truth.  so he finally told us.  He had not told daddy that he had
fallen through the Ice because he did not want to be grounded.
He is grounded.  But he seems to be taking his punishment well and he
knows that we love him.  But I thought that you might like to know that
the same son who tried to electrocute himself when he was 18 months old
has tried to drown himself under ice at 8 years old.

Crissy

Addition from Will

Today we took william to the local doctor because he has been having lots of discolored wax in his ears, and complaining of hearing problems. We get to the doctor and he looks in williams ears. he doesn't speak english so he gets another student here to translate. Somehow he had compacted the wax in his ears, and it had plugged the ear almost completely on the ear drum. The discolorated liquid/pus was just the ear trying to get this out.
William then confessed to trying to clean out his ears about 2 weeks ago. My son sometimes is trying to hurt himself. The doctor had to have him hold very still while he had to grab out pieces of solidified ear wax, and to scrape it off of his ear drum.
In two days, my son has tried to drown himself under ice, and tried to make himself go deaf. He scares me so badly because he doesn't think he is in any danger.

Will