When Andy was a baby, I heard stories from friends with kids his age about the horrors of their kid falling off the bed. That never happened to us and I always congratulated myself on my obviously brilliant parenting. When I heard those stories, I was was sympathetic, but smug on the inside. Of course that wouldn't happen to us. I'm got this shit down. Yeah, and then today my kid fell down the stairs and I take every single smug thought back.
I had made a playdate for the afternoon with a soccer friend whose son is exactly one year to the day younger than Andy. She was going to bring back some of the baby stuff that Henry didn't need any longer and I was going to send her home with some of the 12- to 24-month clothes that Andy has grown out of. I was in Andy's room happily sorting through the clothes while he played with one of his trucks. We were happily busy - at least I thought - when I heard the tell-tale thud. I was at the top of the stairs in an instant to hear the first sob. Bjorn was downstairs in the basement and came flying up (presuming it was both of us had fallen, actually). It was terrible. Andy was scared and I was horrified. Since I didn't see it, I'm not sure how far down on the stairs he was to know how far he'd fallen or what he hit. There were no obvious red marks or bruises, but Andy was crying and I was close. We checked him out - his eyes were fine showing no sign of concussion (although wet), he was crying (also a good sign that he was mentally okay), he had full command of his arms and legs and a couple of minutes later was angrily pointing at the stairs showing us where he'd fallen. He was back to himself and perky again not 10 minutes later, but I've had a knot in my stomach all day.
The funny thing is that for the past month we've been practicing going down the stairs with him scooting on his butt. Recently he's been insisting on sliding that way rather than holding my hand. I've been preferring it thinking it was safer. In all this time, I don't think he's had a slip that made me worry. Not until today, of course since I wasn't watching. He'd been so good that I'd gotten out of the habit of putting up the gate at the top of the stairs, partly because I didn't think he needed it any longer. I guess I was wrong.
In other less scary news, Andy started calling me "Mommy" today. Up until now, it had been "Mama." I kind of like "Mama" and was thinking I preferred it over "Mommy," but apparently this kid has other ideas. I noticed it this morning and then he stuck with it off and on all day. I can't remember now if he's been calling Bjorn "Dada" or "Daddy" until today, but he definitely was calling him "Daddy" today, too. He's also decided that Bjorn is his favorite and half the day today he called for his father and even named the book "Gumman" (the Swedish book) that he wanted him to read. That was pretty cool.
You are not alone. When Jackson was just over a year old and I was hugely pregnant with Katie, I watched as if in slow motion as Jackson just decided walk down the stairs by himself. And proceeded to tumble down 15 steps. I was a wreck! He calmed down in no time, but I still took him to the ER b/c I thought maybe he calmed down a little too quickly. Everything was fine, of course. But I know how scary that feeling is. I can still see him tumbling down those stairs in his red aligator pajamas.
ReplyDeleteThe benefit was he avoided the stairs for MONTHS after that. But one day over Christmas, he just started sliding down the stairs on his tummy. I don't even know how he learned that way, but there's no stopping him now.