The other day I picked up a two year old girl. I’m quite accustomed to picking up young children, since one (not naming any names THANE) walks wonderfully well, but not in the directions I want him to go. Therefore, traipsing between engagements, he gets carried. So when I picked up this little girl, I thought I knew what I was doing.
I nearly threw the poor child into the ceiling, she was so light. Featherlike, even!
My son is not. No, not he. Not Mr. I’m Wearing 2T Clothes at 13 Months. Not Mr. I Eat More Than My Four Year Old Brother (Please Pass the Cheese).
We’ve decided to call him Mr. Moon, actually, because 1) he is entirely made of cheese 2) he weighs as much as a huge lump of rock.
I digress. That sweet child is attempting to kill me, his loving mother.
Friday when I went to pick him up from daycare it was slippery. I had just gotten my young son from Abuela and had given him his first 20 “I missed you” kisses on the cheeks and was walking down the stairs to the car, holding his massive weight in front of me. Now you think you know what’s coming, but you’re wrong. I can’t blame the fact that there was one more step than I expected on the slipperiness. I just plain missed it. I tumbled to the ground, using my body in ways it was not intended to be used in order to keep my baby from hitting the pavement. Better yet, Abuela was still watching from the door. If my body is going to already have to take a hit, couldn’t my dignity at least be unblemished? But nooooooo. FYI, he’s heavy and has a lot of inertia.
Yesterday I had a less than delightful day and was glad to be trudging home. My husband was doing aikido until about 8:30, so I was on my own with the boys. Grey was just telling me how his preschool teacher was unhappy with his attention span and filling me in on exactly which joke drove her nuts during Circle time, while I carried Thane to the car through the snow.
Flash back a million years to college. One year for Spring Break about 10 of us rented a condo and went on a ski vacation. This was possibly the most exciting vacation I’d taken without parental supervision, although we were the tamest, most polite bunch of college students you’d ever want to meet. (Except for the home made pudding. Don’t ask.) The very first day, my boyfriend (now husband) took me on my very first ski trip. We spent an hour or so on the bunny slope. I was doing well. Then we went down our first real run.
I made it the rest of the way down the hill in the back of one of those ski patrol sled thingies. That was the first and last time I ever went skiing. I didn’t walk properly for about 6 months. As a permanent reminder, I have a torn meniscus in my left knee.
You actually need your knee ligaments for less than you might think. I live my life quite happily without it, most of the time. I backpack and play raquetball. I hoist my kids around. But every once in a while my knee is in some position where it needs the support of ligaments it no longer possesses. When that happens, I crumble to the ground in blinding pain.
And so it happened. I took a step. My knee collapsed into agony and so did I, once again holding Thane and attempting to keep him from hitting the ground with me. For a very, very long five minutes I was kneeling in the dark in the snow next to my car trying very hard not to cry while Grey (oblivious) whined about why I hadn’t opened his door and Thane squawked protest to my death-grip on him. And what can you do, so vulnerable, in pain, responsible? You pull yourself together, attempt to stand, buckle people into their car seats, and call various members of your family to complain.
My knee is very achy today. If experience is true, it’ll be sore and stiff for a week, and gradually get back to normal.
I’m hoping my “bad luck in threes” was actually fulfilled this morning. Right in front of me, a driver failed to notice the slowing traffic and plowed into the car in front of him, making a nice 4 car pileup that I had front row seats for. A state patrol officer was right there. No one was hurt — I pulled over to see if they needed my eye-witness report which they didn’t.
I do hope that there isn’t another fall ahead with me holding Mr. I Put Lead Weights in My Diaper, because I’ve been very lucky so far to only hurt myself.
Wish me good luck trying to avoid his next assassination attempt!
My Truant Pen 