i got a bug in my eye? that’s the best you could do?

Posted on | June 23, 2010 | 22 Comments

bumps. bruises. scratches. goose eggs. scrapes. ::shudder:: blood.

all words i have to become familiar with now that i am the proud owner of a real live, in the flesh toddler. if i may say so, babies go way too quickly from being fat cute little lumps to mobile munchkins scaring the holy heck out of us. i signed up for a baby. not this little monster who gives me small heart attacks and terrible visions of what could have just happened if she hadn’t caught her footing right by that table.

with summer upon us (some days) and the kiddo wearing shorts and tanks and sandals, the skin to clothing ratio is off, thus creating a lot of opportunity for the aforementioned words to happen. last night she tripped 2 times and scratched her legs right up. it makes me think back on what a HOT MESS of a child i was.

at 10 months i hit my chin on the coffee table, sending my 2 new bottom teeth right through mah tongue (i still have the scar). about a year or so later while my mama and i were shopping at JC Penny, i decided it would be a swell idea whilst playing under the clothes racks, to stick my thumb into one of the metal holes in said rack. guess what happens when you pull your stubby little 2 year old thumb OUT of a jagged metal hole not meant for thumbs? oh yeah, it tries to rip your thumb right off. 7 stitches.

like most kids of the 80′s, i spent the majority of my childhood outside. looking back, i was a tom boy, always riding my bike, playing with the neighbor boys and their micromachines, building tree forts and just plain getting dirty. all of which involved getting hurt. a lot. i was a maniac on my bike and wish i still had the stamina and skillz i used to have (instead i pull muscles getting cereal. getting old is a witch). i think i was 6 when i flipped right over the handle bars and introduced my face to the pavement. i remember sitting up, feeling my front tooth with my tongue and it was bent backwards to the roof of my mouth. trip to the dentist to remove it and i was back on my way.

was anyone else KICK ACE on the bars on the playground? well I WAS. i thought i was a modern day nadia comaneci on those bad boys and i could spin for minutes without breaking a sweat or falling off. except that one time. belly flops onto gravel? not so much the awesome. two bloody lips and my first experience of having the wind knocked out of me (i LITERALLY thought i was dying and my dreams of marrying fred savage and living the life my most recent M.A.S.H session would never play out).

one evening when i was about 8, i went on a bike ride with my friend monica and her dad along a trail by our house (seriously remember when we would just ride bikes? do kids still do this? i hope so). somehow or another, i knicked my knee on the part where the chain goes around (do not ask me how, i still have no clue). it hurt SO bad and i remember trying so hard not to cry because for some reason i was really embarrassed (probably because monica was a year older than me and really cool). i felt the tears coming down my cheeks as i tried to soldier on, but monica’s dad noticed and asked me what was wrong. i told him i got a bug in my eye. luckily my super amazing and very appropriate-for-riding-bikes dress and white tights ensemble told a different story. white tights + blood = probably not a bug in your eye. i had cut the crap out of my knee and had to be taken to urgent care to get stitches.

i never broke a bone as a kid (saved that for my epic car accident when i was 21 – lighting bolt shaped collarbone up in this piece) but i had my share of close calls. i think of all the things in store for Harper and i can only hope she escapes from childhood mildly unscathed. however i’m not an idiot – she’s a KID – and things are going to happen. i just hope i have the wherewithal to get through them gracefully and with out running down the street screaming “A SIDEWALK TRIED TO MURDER MY BABYYYY!”. i really need to work on that, because she is falling, tripping, bonking her head and scratching her knees on the daily it seems. the thing is? she is tough. she rarely cries, sometimes she even laughs (hilarious, you just almost ate concrete,) and she always, always looks to me first to see if she’s hurt. it’s really hard sometimes to say “you’re ok!” when inside i’m not. but i say it, and she toddles off on her merry way, totally unphased.

resilient little suckers, those kids.

Category: memoriiiiiiiiies, nugget, old mandy, thats embarassing, Uncategorized

Comments

  • http://www.beingpeachy.com ThePeachy1

    As the queen of all Clumsy I welcome you into watching the next generation of our club. My daughter ( now 21) broke her toe and needed surgery from kicking her brother in the butt. ( karma?)

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/kurunner kurunner

    I know I shouldn't have, but I completely laughed during this whole post. Something about the JC Penney story reminded me how I used to go around sticking my tiny little fingers into random holes (back before that sentence would have made me think of naughty things.) Seriously, I once stuck my thumb into a knothole in a tree. They had to cut into the tree to get my thumb out. Ah, the good ol' days.

    And no, kids no longer ride bikes or play baseball or anything of that nature. They have wiis to pretend to ride bikes and pretend to play baseball. All the fun of the game with no actual health benefits.

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  • http://www.twitter.com/katbrad Kat

    you know in cartoons when animals and people would flap their hands slightly and take flight?
    yeah. I thought I could do that.
    I couldn't.
    I also didn't learn my lesson just once, clearly.

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/boysandgirlclub Ani @ boys&girlclub

    Well said. I think all mom's with a toddler can relate to this, myself included. Everyone tells me "boys will be boys", but really kids will be kids & toddlers are just a smaller, lumpier & clumsier version of a kid so they're bound to get even more bent, bruised & scraped.

    I was hit by a car when I was 6, while crossing a crosswalk [super long story], I was also a tomboy & ate it far too many times on my adorable teal green "trick" bike. Once I put on the front brake way too fast, flew over the handle bars into a ditch where my bike then landed on top of me, the exposed metal handlebar nailing me in the jugular. I literally stumbled to a neighbor's house GASPING for air, thinking I was surely going to suffocate & die right there on their well-manicured lawn [My dreams would have consisted of marrying Joey from NKOTB]. I also once got a blade of grass stuck in my eyeball. Absolutely terrifying. & I also have never broken a bone. How did we survive so unscathed?!

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  • http://www.unlikelymama.net Amber

    HAHAHA THIS —> "“A SIDEWALK TRIED TO MURDER MY BABYYYY!”"
    My brother once ran home when I had fallen outside. He swore the tree bit me :-)
    I never broke anything as a kid, but ohh the scars. Some on my face, most on my legs. I was too a tomboy of sorts. I hope Alexa is a bit more careful than I was, but I'm not delusional. Some of my scars are my best stories!

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  • Sandy

    Had to LOL about spinning on the bars on the playground! I did this too and the backs of my knees would be completely rubbed raw!

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    teammandy Reply:
    June 24th, 2010 at 3:33 am

    YES! and the hand callouses! oh the callouses.

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  • http://jellybean529.blogspot.com Andrea

    Oh how I love this post…not only because your childhood and mine sound almost identical, but because you described my daughter perfectly. She's two and her legs are only what I can describe as abstract art…covered in bruises and scrapes and always a blur from moving so fast!

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/sarahloub sarahloub

    I was (and am) quite clumsy and also a bit of a tomboy. I loved climbing trees, getting "lost" in the woods (which was hard to do because I knew them so well), riding my bike, fishing, etc. However– I didn't like getting hurt. My dad still likes to tell people that when I was learning how to ride a bike I fell and then refused to get back on for weeks, maybe even months. Somehow he eventually convinced me to try again… and then I became stubborn and didn't care how much I was bleeding. (Once I tried hiding my bleeding foot after stepping on a nail–and I didn't cry until my uncle found out.)

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  • http://plenertia.blogspot.com annemarie

    I was crazy kick ace on the monkey bars. I was pretty much a foot longer than everybody else and had 10 times the reach that they did. I never got hurt – other kids broke their noses trying to do what I was doing!

    (I totally got hurt doing other stuff though. Notably: broke my arm falling off a trampoline, then scared the poop out of the playground supervisors by jumping off swings at the apex and running down a hill with my arm in a cast. Brilliant, self.)

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  • http://funnyorsnot.com Poppy

    Your poor mother. Harper can't possibly top you.

    By the way, I'm glad things didn't work out with you and Fred Savage even if M.A.S.H did predict you live happily ever after in a mansion in the Hollywood hills.

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/alissawins alissawins

    at only 9 months my baby is already collecting her share of bumps and scratches. and i hate it. h-a-t-e it. if shes anything like her father and my younger sister, we'll be seeing the er fairly often.

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  • http://summersleep.tumblr.com Zee

    This is an awesome post. You're a really entertaining writer.. I had my nephew here since he was born before moving away a month ago.. He was about 21 months old and even before that, whenever he bonks his head or trips or anything, he does that too.. the looking at the adults to know if he's hurt! So even though we were practically screaming on his way down to meet his nemesis, we just smile reassuringly and help him up, relief clear on our faces and he toddles off on his way..

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/theorganictart Janelle

    LOVE this post! One of the things that impresses me most about my toddler is how tough he is – I really thought that all kids burst into tears at the sight of a crack in the cement, menacing them, threatening to pull them down…but no, 9.7 times out of ten when eat eats it he just gets up, brushes off his hands, and goes on his merry way. I wish I was that tough!

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  • Emily

    Great post!
    I have a 21 month old that is CONSTANTLY getting hurt. Around Christmas time he actually fell and hit our brick fireplace, 3 stitches!! I was a WRECK! Do you know how much the head bleeds?!
    I have a 9 month old that is just getting mobile, I can't even imagine what I'm going to do with both of them running around, lol.

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  • http://toniandryan.blogspot.com Toni

    Great post!! I'm trying to come to grips with my son getting bumps and bruises. I don't know why I'm so crazy because I was also a tomboy with 2 brothers. We were constantly outside playing and falling. My little brother was in the emergency room so many times one year, they questioned my parents about child abuse. No lie. The boy just loved to get hurt – no fear.

    My son will be playing outside and riding bikes. I refuse to let him fall victim to the video game generation!

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  • Kelly

    They're amazing, huh?! It's hard to not freak out when they hurt themselves cuz our freak-outs somehow manage to make their owies worse! And wow, lady, you had a lot of bad stumbles as a kid!

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  • Kacie

    I am totally not looking forward to this stage. My little man is only 9 months and already gets bumps and bruises. He is a maniac!! Luckily he is a boy and I expect for the bumps and bruises to come but if I had a little girl I think I would freak a little more. I hope I can stay strong for my son through all the boo-boos he will get. I was very clumsy and I hope my son doesn't get my gracefulness ;)

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/momnom momnom

    Oh gosh, I was ALWAYS breaking or injuring something as a child of the 80's, as well. I feel like we were right on the cusp of the generation of parents that just let their kids run and play and have fun.

    Unfortunately, for me, my seven year old has spent more time in the hospital than me or his dad combined. Clearly he got my two left feet.

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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/mshalz mshalz

    I was totally a tomboy when I was a girl too. And although I hate it when my son falls and skins his knees I love being the "booboo kisser" :)

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  • http://newthingsformom.blogspot.com/2010/06/change-in-thought.html Michelle B

    Such a great post. The first time I sprained my wrist, I fell off a teeter totter. I was up high and they were holding me there. The seat just tipped to the side and down I went. I was laughing so hard I didn't know I was hurt unitl it started to swell.
    In 7th grade, I was chasing a boy (imagine that). I grabbed his shirt as he went around a pole. I looked at my hand and noticed that the tip of my finger made a perfect 90degree angle. A trip to the ER and found that although I only broke it at the first knuckle, I had twisted the whole bone up to my elbow. I had a cast to it for the three months!

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  • Margaret

    Love it! I was kick ace on the bars on the playground, too! I spent so much time on them at recess and over the summer I had monster bruises behind my knees for what seemed like a year straight. About that same time, I also learned when your swimming bag suddenly gets jammed into the front fork of your bike, your face and the pavement meet very quickly.

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