Sometimes I Can Be a …

Last night, just as we were sitting down to dinner, I sent Lefty and The Kid off to wash up. A few minutes passed and then there was a thud and a wail. While practicing karate chops on a pillow, The Kid fell face first onto the hardwood floor. Tears, tears and more tears. Ice. Checking for busted teeth, bleeding lips and finding nothing but a raised grazed mark on his upper lip. Five minutes pass before The Kid says, "My head hurts. I hit my head too." And sure enough, there's a pinkish bruised mark across his forehead.

Now, this is what amazes me - they were suppose to be washing hands for dinner. How did it turn into karate practice? How did my child fall flat on his face from a standing position, no running, no jumping or slipping involved and here's what I cannot understand, with his dad standing six inches in front of him?

Lefty felt terrible and once The Kid calmed, we had a good look at the bruise, and consulted the ever-knowledgeable Boots, who told me what to watch for and worry about with a bad head bump.

After a now-cold dinner, we put The Kid to bed and he was fine – is fine. Slept like a log. I, on the other hand, slept fitfully, and got up to check on him a lot. Add to that the fact that I went to bed exhausted from glaring at Lefty and asking fifty thousand times, "How did this happen?"

I tell this story to point out my own bad behavior. I blamed Lefty for what was clearly an accident. Instead of worrying about The Kid together, we had to do it separately because I was an *ss. Sorry, Lefty.