It’s hard to blame your 2-year-old for poking you in the eye, even as you race to the ER

The book hit my eye before I had a chance to flinch or even blink.

It was one of those hard-edged little books filled with the kind of destruction that delights Matteo — wrecking balls smashing into walls, backhoes crushing concrete slabs.

I didn’t feel any pain. I just kept playing with my 2-year-old, once I’d explained to him that books are for reading, not hurling at Daddy’s face.

About two hours later, though, wispy, black lines drifted into my field of vision. They brought to mind the smoke-like dementors from Harry Potter.

This was on a Saturday night. Accidents always seem to happen when everything is closed. A few years ago, our cat got sick on New Year’s Day. We had to go to the animal ER — and blow the entire $300 my grandmother had sent me to buy a new watch.

To make sure I was OK, I went to an urgent-care clinic. Soon after, I was driving to Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s emergency room. What you’re describing, the doctor at the clinic had said, sounds like it could be a torn or detached retina.

I am Italian — and a borderline hypochondriac. As I sat waiting for the eye doctor to arrive, a Puccini-like melodrama blossomed in my head. I imagined going blind, no longer able to see my boys smile or to see them one day take the stage for their college graduations.

My mother, trying to cheer me up via WhatsApp, suggested I tell my youngest, “Daddy is now blind, he’s lost his job, and he is going to have to sell all of your toys to make ends meet.”

My fears didn’t ease as the eye doctor probed my eye with a light so bright it looked like it could burn a hole all the way to the back of my skull.

He asked me to open my eyes wide for some drops, and my mouth automatically opened, too.

“Sorry,” he said, “but that makes me laugh every time.”

You’d be surprised, he said, how often we see kid-caused eye injuries to parents.

About 15 minutes in, I could no longer stand the suspense and asked, “Do you see anything I should worry about?”

“I’m going to finish up, and then we’ll have a talk,” he said.

I thought: He’s preparing me for the worst. Not only am I going blind, but I probably also have a tumor rampaging through my brain.

“This may hurt a little,” he said, pressing a metal tool to my eye socket to get a better look.

It did.

Then, finally, it was over: I did not have a detached retina. No retinal tear, either — at least not that he could see.

The blow had loosened some of the gel that separates the front of the eye from the retina — an annoying but not serious condition. Get a follow-up exam in a couple of days, the doctor said.

OK, so I was a little irritated with Matteo. Around the same time the book was flying toward my face, “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie’s toddler smacked her in the eye, too, though with a toy train. That led to a torn retina and five laser treatments.

But what do you say to a 2-year-old?

“Listen, buddy, that kitten we’ve been talking about for Christmas? Not happening. Ditto for the Thomas the tank engine set.”

Or maybe put away what I was feeling, only to drag it out years from now when my teenage son says I’m a stupid, mean so-and-so for not letting him use the car to go drag racing?

“Really?!” I could say then. “After all that I’ve done for you? Have you forgotten what happened on Nov. 23, 2019, when you almost blinded your dad?”

I’m told that the wispy lines I’m seeing eventually are likely to shrink — or that my brain will trick me into believing they’re not there.

I have, of course, forgiven my little one.

A couple of nights ago, after we finished “The Pout-Pout Fish,” one of his favorite books, Matteo insisted he wouldn’t go to sleep unless I lay down next to him. So I did.

I made a canopy with my fingers that connected my face to his. He giggled with delight. It was as though we were hiding together in our own little tent.

Then, one of his fingers reached for my face, and he said, “Daddy, I poke you?”

“Fingers,” I told him, “are not for poking.”

Then, I wrapped his tiny hand in mine, and he hugged me and drifted off to sleep.

Rich Hein / Sun-Times

FATHERHOOD: AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

This is one of an occasional series of columns on fatherhood by Sun-Times staff reporter Stefano Esposito, the dad of two young sons.