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Monday, February 22, 2010

My Prize Fighter

He fought the stairs and the stairs won. Yesterday was a rough day. I posted in the afternoon when we first got home from our after church lunch, early in the afternoon, when I still thought that there was a chance that Q might actually take a nap. But it was not to be. He had fallen asleep for the last 4 minutes of the ride home and he was considering that to be his 4 minute power nap to get him through the rest of the day. So, he was up. And grumpy. We all went outside (yes, even me) to enjoy the beautiful weather (65 and sunny!). Q experienced the joy of Fort Pendley in the backyard and learned the excitement of the swing and the slide and bubbles on the patio. I tried to push him in his little tyke car, but he was insistent on standing up in it, so that was a short lived activity. We had a snack. We went upstairs. (Chris stayed downstairs to work on lesson plans. I blame the following events on public education and the amount of time that is required for teachers to put in on Sunday afternoons to be prepared for the week. Otherwise I think this never would have happened. At least, that is what I like to think.)

Back to the story...we were upstairs, with the gate up at the top of the stairs. Q was opening and closing the door to the closet in the spare room, so I convinced him that we should lay down together on the bed. It worked. And then the girls heard that there was snuggling going on, so they came in and joined us. Quinn decided there was too much estrogen in the bed and left the room. I sat up and sighed, "Your brother is going to be the death of me."

"What does that mean, Mama?" asked Casey, with her eyes wide at the mention of the word death.

I stood up from the bed and jumped into my explanation, "Well, its a phrase. You use it when something exhausts you and is somewhat irritating. Like, you could say, 'Cleaning my room is going to be the death of me.'" Eager heads nodded in agreement and then it happened...

A horrible crash and grunting and the thudding down the stairs. I screamed. I screamed for Chris as I watched my baby lie in a heap on the landing of the stairs tangled up with the gate. We both slid onto the landing at the same time. Q cried for 45 seconds. (Which is really remarkable, because he cries for 10 minutes when you tell him no.) His injuries? A scraped eyelid and nose, a slight black eye and rug burn on his shoulder. I believe the gate hurt him more than the stairs. Bottom line: this boy really is going to be the death of me.

**ps. I wish that I could show you a picture of this, but he wouldn't hold still. big sigh.

2 comments:

Emily said...

Oh my. All I can say is that he will grow out of it. Of course, he'll grow into some other self destructive behavior. But at least it'll be a change. :) And hearing "no" is way worse than falling down stairs. Jeez, mom.

FireFliez on the Lilypad said...

Girl, when Savanna was not quite a year I was carrying her down some wooden steps and tripped and fell and dropped her as we both went down the entire flight. She was fine, but her pediatrician had to give me a prescription for pain & to calm me down...I felt sooooo guilty!