Tire Swingifuge

My eight-year-old, Sebastian, had a wild ride on a tire swing today. It wasn't the kind of tire swing I remember from my youth. You know, the kind that your dad made out of an old tire and hung from a tree in your backyard. The kind that sometimes looked kind of interesting from indoors, but when you got out there it was all hot and smelly and full of mosquito hatchlings?

No, this swing was some kind of modern engineering marvel made from sculpted tire parts, complicated rope systems, and, I believe, solid fuel booster rockets.

Sebastian's friends convinced him to climb aboard the swing and proceeded to spin him around and around and around and around until he was, by his estimate, as far off the ground as my chin is. Then they let him go.

You know what happened next. For each turn they wound him up, he went in the opposite direction in increasingly rapid rotations. By the time he finally stopped spinning, he weren't feeling too good.

When I went to pick him up, he had noticeable swelling and petechiae (not really a whole malady this month, more of a physical finding) around his eyes. Usually we see this when people are vomiting or coughing vigorously, but it can happen anytime you experience increased pressure in your face.

I think any plans he had on being a fighter pilot are on indefinite hold.