This morning, Jared got a glass sliver in his foot.

It’s not the most surprising thing in the world. The boys break glasses ALL THE TIME. Like, in the past 5 years, I’ve broken one glass. And yet, I’m missing about twelve glasses (don’t even get me started on plates). And the frequency has only increased since it’s become Jared’s chore to do the dishes. Add to that, I’m not always around to clean up the glass. I have had one of the guys sweeps an area, proclaim it clean, and then I go over it afterwards and still find chunks of glass I can pick up with my hand, let alone the glitter of tiny glass shards all over. If I’m not there to clean it again 5 times, the house looks like this:

“All clean!”

My child was walking around our apparently dangerous floor, barefoot and on the balls of his feet, when the sliver of glass struck. He cried out, hobbled over to a chair where he grabbed his foot and saw about 3 mm (metric, bitches) of blood covered something sticking out. I came around the corner, and my child said “don’t touch my foot!”

Uh huh.

I come over to investigate, and Jared says “if you give me tweezers, I’ll get it out myself.” He seems calm at this point, and if he can get it out himself, it should build confidence. Plus, any time I get within 3 feet of him, he screams “don’t touch my foot!” like an over-sensitive car alarm for a podiatrist. I hunt down the tweezers, and hand them to him.

And then a pause.

And then he starts crying. The idea that it’s going to hurt has him in tears over the pain HE HASN’T EVEN EXPERIENCED YET. He is so afraid of the possible pain he can’t bring himself to bring the tweezers to his foot. He keeps saying things like “my brain tells my hand to move to my foot, but my hand won’t do it.” I offer to do it for him, and he gets a horrified look on his face like I offered to punch him in the gut and steal his stuffed animal.

Yes, my pre-teen has a security stuffed bunny, and if you say anything about it I’ll punch you in the gut and steal your gun, your door lock, or your savings account. We all have our things that make us feel secure. At least his comes in adorable cuddle form.

OH! *Now* I get A.I.

So Jared and I go back and forth, him saying he’ll do it, then bursting into tears. Me offering to help, and him giving his own mother horrified looks. About 15 minutes into this, I tell him he has to get it done in 10 minutes, or I’m going to do it.

He hands me the tweezers, and covers his foot with his hands. I mention to him that I can’t get to his foot, and he says that he wants to be ready. I suggest that he can’t hold onto his bunny that way, and he gives me a look that says “Don’t be a bitch.”

He eventually moves his hands to his bunny, and I move in. And then he drops his bunny to cover his foot, casting his most beloved item to the floor, bawling his eyes out and saying IT HURTS. And I still haven’t even touched his foot.

This type of behaviour happened for another half an hour. I finally had him sitting on his hands, his bunny tucked under an arm, looking away. I had slowly inched myself closer and closer. He screamed when I went in, and then 2 seconds later: …that was it?

Yes my son. All that crying and tears and anguish, and it was 2 non-painful seconds.

My son and I had a talk after that about the difference between being courageous and being fearless. Courage is doing something even though you’re afraid. It takes bravery, and telling your body to do things it wouldn’t normally. Fearless is the absence of fear. It’s not having that fear at all. By doing courageous things, you can get to a point of being fearless.

My son picked up on the connection right away. You see, I’m the marketing director and a founding member with a very courageous group of people putting together a comedy production company. The company is a collaboration of partner groups, many of whom already do offensive and risky comedy, to produce and encourage the production of comedy that takes chances. That “pushes buttons and pushes boundaries.” Comedy that is Fearless.

Oh, that’s the name of the company, by the way. Fearless Comedy Productions. In fact, when I say that some awesome comedy partners are collaborating with Fearless, YoungNotions is one of them. See the button in the upper right? Go there. I mean, right now it’s the countdown to the website that will launch in a couple days and a list of partners. But check it out, and check out the other partners, and check out our facebook page at www.facebook.com/FearlessComedyProductions and follow us on Twitter @FearlessComedy.

Come on! Do it! Don’t be afraid… it’s not like I’m trying to take a sliver of glass out of your foot.