Bumps and Scrapes and Falls, Oh My!

C. was working from home yesterday, and when he came up from the basement at dinnertime he said, “Did Miles fall? I heard a big thump.” And I said, “Which time?” Seriously, the kid falls so many times a day I’ve stopped noticing.

It’s not that I’m a careless parent, it’s just that it’s not that big a deal anymore. He falls, he cries, I kiss his boo-boo, and we move on. If made a big production out of every bump and scrape, we’d never have time for anything else. Plus, I fear I’d turn Miles into (more of) a drama queen.

I worry about those kids whose parents run after them anxiously at all times, as if their child was a piece of fine china in Crocs and they’d like nothing more than to swaddle him in bubble wrap and surround him with marshmallows and foam rubber. What happens when, inevitably, the parent can’t eliminate every potential risk in the child’s environment? What if the kid pinches his finger in a zipper or trips over a tree root? He’ll think the world is out to get him!

Besides, as another wise and witty mother (whose name I can’t remember right now) once said, “Toddlers can get a concussion from a cotton ball.” That’s Miles to a T. He rarely knowingly does anything dangerous, like stick his head in the oven, but he very, very often finds a way to make a harmless object hazardous.

Here’s a case in point: last week he was running around with this little plastic frog. Even though he’s past the age of putting everything in his mouth (except Play-doh), for some reason he decided to find out what the frog tasted like. So he’s running with a toy frog in his mouth and he slips on the wood floor and falls.

He happened to fall in just such a way that the frog became wedged between his upper and lower teeth, jamming his jaw open. I ask you, what are the chances?? What are the odds of him falling at the exact angle necessary to cause that kind of freak accident? Anyway, we quickly pried the frog from his mouth and he was fine. So we added another rule to the ever-growing list of household safety regulations: “No running with frogs in your mouth.”

I’m happy to say that Miles is a pretty resilient kid. His frequent minor accidents don’t get in the way of his enjoyment of life. And that bodes well for him if he ever faces seriously challenging or painful situations.

Take his friend Ollie, for instance. This poor child underwent a 4-hour surgery, after which he had to have all kinds of bandages and tubes attached and removed from him repeatedly. Full recovery will take weeks. His parents, like any I can imagine, are almost unable to bear the awfulness of it. But Ollie handled it. In the hospital, they say he played with his toy tractors and watched his videos, didn’t put up too much of a fight about being confined to bed, and now, back home, he’s already back to playing and preschool. God bless him.

The way I look at it, as a parent you can get yourself all in a tizzy about every scratch, or you can thank your lucky stars you’ve got a healthy, active kid with no serious health issues. Although I’m sure the long-term prognosis for repetitive frog jaw can’t be good.

MILESISMS O’ THE WEEK:
“Last morrow” = yesterday. A combination of “last time” and “tomorrow,” perhaps?
“Nickles” = those 2 things on our chests that serve no purpose in men but women find useful in breastfeeding.
“Pee-nember” = to remember or recall something that happened in the past.