This weekend, I took the kids to a neighborhood pool we haven’t visited before.

It was way awesome … until Tootie materialized at my lounger with blood dripping from her eyebrow. (She’d bumped her head against a wall, having ditched her goggles.)

My daughter is what one would describe as Minnesota-stoic. I’m not from Minnesota, mind you. I’m a Texas gal. But anyone capable of living functioning in those northern climes must be of hardy stock, no?

Anyway.

When Tootie injures herself, there’s no wail of impending doom. No shrieking. No screams for mommy.

She just kind of turns up at your side, silently weeping.

Which is why I didn’t see her at first.

No, it took a chorus of, “Oh my goodness, are you all rights?” coming from the many moms in the immediate area.

And there she sat, my daughter, on the lounger next to me, weeping pink tears.

Within seconds, an army of moms produced tissues, Band-aids and offers of ice cream.

One woman sat next to me, proffering fresh Kleenex as blood continued to flow. Head wounds — always so bloody, even when they’re totally innocuous.

Another volunteered Hello Kitty bandages, but returned with the sturdy, waterproof variety from the lifeguard’s first-aid station.

Tootie was fine. Within moments, she was asking when she could get back in the pool.

By the time we left, she was in full-throttle vanity mode — “I look like Frankenstein with this on my forehead, Mama.”

The moms around us laughed. They also asked her if her head was feeling better as we packed up.

And it was then I remembered just how tight the motherhood circle is.

A hurt child, a crying child — we all respond…

… with Band-aids for the kids and reassurances for a fellow mother — who may or may not have been kicking herself for not being the first to notice that her kid was oozing blood.

Tootie, my little fish.