Sympathetic. Sorta.

Mandy's always been a fan of physical comedy.  Here's an email I received from her today, in its entirety:

You know the guilt you feel when you laugh at someone falling? You don't wish them pain, but it's just so damn funny to see. Well the guilt is worse when it's your 4-year-old and he falls off the barstool onto the hard porcelain tile floor.

Still funny as hell it turns out.

Especially when it comes mid-tune to him humming and bouncing around on his knees when I am repeatedly telling him to sit on his butt. I was hugging him hiding my laughter til he finally caught on I was laughing. He joined me.

Sigh

The first nice day after several rainy ones and this is what we have to show for it.

E took a digger at our friend's house I think on the cement step, but I didn't see it. He got over it pretty easily at least although you could tell it hurt like the dickens.

Poor Noah fell down the cement steps at the church and hurt his mouth. I also didn't see it. I was sitting on the bottom step with my back faced to him. Him & Hudson kept going up and down collecting sticks. I heard his helmet thump two times though, so I'm glad he still had it on. He didn't want me cleaning him or messing with it much at all. I got him to let me clean him up and he's laying on the couch with some lemonade. He has a fat lip on the right upper and lower now. Poor kiddos.

My little yard ape

Elliot has become a WILD CHILD! He is a climber. A fearless climber, mind you. He doesn't learn from his mistakes (aka injuries) either. He's at that stage where I literally have to watch him every minute. He loves running as fast as he can, preferably down steep grades on concrete and laughing wildly as he wobbles like a drunken sailor. And last week we officially reached the milestone where there is no more going out to eat, unless it's at a Chick-Fil-A (or anyplace you get your food almost instantly and can run around and climb, play, and be wild after your meal).

Today he & Noah were playing in the backyard. I needed to get ready still. I brought stuff downstairs and went inside the kitchen just to put toothpaste on my toothbrush (I literally brush my teeth while watching him and run inside to rinse).... when I heard a loud crash and crying. CRAP!

One of the most dangerous things in our backyard are the chairs. Elliot climbed up and was standing on it facing backwards and although I didn't see it, I'm positive he was rocking back and forth and then it tipped over forward. Luckily he just scraped up his knuckles/fingers and somehow got a small scrape under his cheek. It could have been much worse.

I never thought I'd say this, but I think he is wilder than Noah. A little bit later in blossoming, but wilder for sure. A couple of hours later at the park, he climbed up the stroller and tried to do the same move. I caught the stroller as it was about to tip over. He.doesn't.learn.

He wouldn't keep bandaids on, but playing with them sure distracted him and made him a happy camper pretty quickly

And it was hilarious watching him squeeze with all his might and shaking trying to get stuff out of the neosporin. Of course, I had the lid on tight so nothing came out.Quickly becoming a tough little cookie.

Poor beat up little dude

Poor Elliot had a rough day. First of all this afternoon he got his first shiner. I was just getting ready to leave to run errands and he was in the playroom with Noah and Claire (our babysitter). I heard him crying hard so I went to check on him before leaving. He was playing/climbing around the slide and somehow fell on the window ledge. Not sure exactly how it happened, but it's already bruising up :( Noah also got a black eye on the window ledge when he was 9 months and just learning to walk too. Poor thing :( I made it all better before leaving him.

Then when Paul came home, he immediately cried/whined for him and demanded to be carried around by his dad like he does daily. He is such a daddy's boy! I heard him doing his painful cry from upstairs when Paul took him up to change out of his work clothes. Evidently Paul had put Noah's bed rail down and Elliot climbed up on it and somehow hit his mouth on the corner of the bed. That bed is dangerous. (I can't even count how many times Noah's hit his head on it in the middle of the night. We now have 5 pillows in bed with him so he won't do it anymore.)

After his bloody/fat lip he was no longer Daddy's boy for the night. He wanted me and only me. Poor kid.

Ouch!

Noah got bit yesterday by a friend. I thought it was an accident because they were bouncing and I thought Noah just landed on his friend. However, Noah has bitten me three times in the last 24 hrs since said incident. He has never been a biter, so it makes me think maybe it was an actual on purpose bite? I don't know for sure, and Noah parrots whatever I say. So if I ask if he fell and it was an accident, he says that. If I ask if his friend bit him, he says that. Not very reliable. Doesn't really matter at this point anyway, I suppose.

I've been consistent each time he did it, making him go to time out and explaining it's not nice to bite and that it hurts. He hasn't done it when he's upset or anything, and it's only been light/not painful. I am hoping it stops soon. Before he gets someone else besides me!

I took him to the park just hours after the incident. Between the chin bite, bruised up legs, and a bruise on his face, for the first time, I was actually a bit nervous somone might think I abuse my son. I had to nervously explain all his boo-boos to some lady who probably thinks I'm insane. She had a 1 year old boy. I'm sure she'll understand in a year :)

Yesterday

Today

Rough Day

It's been a long week. I was so looking forward to the end of it. The day itself was one of those rare days in early Spring - sandwiched between the snow, rain and freezing temps; where the sun is shining, the sky is blue, temperatures are just right and there's a slight breeze to make things even more pleasant.

The plan was to head home and take Noah for that bike ride he had been begging for all week. I even planned leaving a few minutes early to make the most of the rest of this day. A few minutes before I left, I got a call from Mandy, and all I could hear was Noah sobbing uncontrollably in the background. Now, he's a physical boy and normally getting a "boo boo" only causes tears until we tell him to brush it off, or until we pick him up and "kwiss it".

This time was different. He took a spill running downhill on cement, and opened up both his knees. His left knee was the worst, right on top of the scar that was forming from his first major injury that was still healing after a couple of months. In that incident, he was getting wild in the bathtub and, despite our repeated (and futile) efforts to get him to calm down and warn him that he could get hurt, he jumped up and split his knee open on the bathtub drain handle.

Let me tell you, trying to get a wet, slippery, bleeding toddler out of the bath, get the blood cleaned up and get the toddler in question quiet all before Mom gets wind of the chaos unfolding upstairs is, in fact, impossible.

Fortunately, I'm married to a pediatric nurse, and she's fairly unflappable about this sort of thing. Unfortunately, she didn't see him before I had him bandaged up. Had she done so, she probably would have recommended stitches and a doctor. By the time the cut had split open for the third time a few days later, it was too late for stitches and we had to resort to butterfly bandages.

It left such an impression on Noah though, that he often refers to this 'tragedy' and it even shapes his current bath behavior. Any time I take off his PJs or pants, I hear, "I got a boo-boo daddy. I jump in de tub." And "That not wise." He no longer jumps in the tub, although he's not been cured of his habit of splashing.

Noah was so worked up and shaking uncontrollably, and unwilling to be put down by his mom that he eventually passed out, and I came home to this scene:

That's a supermom - managing to keep two crying kids quiet. Funny thing was Wally was outside the back door waiting for me when I got home, and had been for at least an hour. Somehow he got outside while she was trying to get in, and she didn't realize it. Good thing he didn't attack any of the guys working on our new street.

Back to Noah - last time he was hurt, I never could tell though, whether he was afraid of the blood, the scar, or the bandages that we had on his knee. After the first incident, he only freaked out whenever we would take his pants off or have to change his bandages. Once the pants went on, he was fine. This time, he was filthy after a day of play outside, and we decided we needed to at least clean the wound before we applied band-aids. So, into the bath we went. It was not a pretty picture - he begged us to leave him alone.

Finally putting on the bandages was the worst. He was doing everything in his power to get away - it scared him to death, and it's heartbreaking to hear your child scream "No, daddy, no!!!" and see the absolute fear in his eyes because he thinks you're going to hurt him.

After we got him bathed and brought him back downstairs, of course he wanted his mama to "hold you" and "cuddle". It's a real rarity for us that Noah likes to slow down and be held, so Mom took full advantage, and camped out on the couch with Noah in her arms like a newborn. That left me with E, the real newborn, who is still not all that happy about getting stuck with me. So for a while, we had a house full of crying kids until Noah finally calmed down and we got to switch kids.

It was good for me as well - I never get to really hold Noah, unless it's to put him to bed. We both felt guilty about how much we were enjoying just hanging out with him on the couch (especially without having to "Play TRAINS!!!!)

After cuddling for awhile, Noah decided he did want to play trains. He was limping and holding his knee as he said "I tough". We played for a bit, but his knee was hurting too much and decided he wanted to cuddle and watch Snoopy.

Mandy just hung out on the couch with him as long as he wanted until sleep finally overcame him. His last words to Mandy were about his accident , "Miss Kewwey, ice cream" (Mandy was carrying this 38 pound boy and pushing a stroller up from down the block as Noah was sobbing, and stopped at our neighbor's house to clean him up and rest her arms. Kelley gave him some ice cream, but he was too upset to have more than a couple bites) and then he started snoring.

Getting hurt early comes from the Thomas side of the family. I had my first four stitches by 20 months, having walked into a slide (they were probably made out of steel and barbed wire back in those days). A year and a half later, I had 22 stitches in my knee from trying to "ice skate" on some windows my mom was washing. She threw me in the bathtub just to keep the blood from ruining her wood floors as we got ready for the hospital. She kept track of all the stitches in my baby book until she got tired of counting. I'm sure we'll see the same with Noah.

Hopefully he'll sleep good tonight and feel better tomorrow. No doubt we'll hear all about these boo-boos for months to come.