Well, it wasn’t technically today — it was a few days ago. But it was a doozy.
Our son is just barely old enough to not-quite-crawl: He can roll around and push himself back and forth a little. Up till now, my wife and I have been in the habit of plunking him into the center of our double bed, two good turns away from all the edges, when we need a moment to get something done
You can pretty much guess what happened. I turned my back for 90 seconds, as I was putting away some freshly folded laundry. And as I stood there, sorting my stupid socks, I heard a thump and a cry. He had landed on his forehead (his head!) and had a big red welt to prove it. It’s the first time I have ever caused him pain, I think, I hope. And by the time I got to daycare an hour later, I was sure that a SWAT team from Child Protective Services would descend and lock me up any moment. By that time, I was thinking that I might deserve it.
When I walked in, our caregiver immediately noticed, and I explained that he’d fallen and hit his head. And she said, as warmly and breezily as I could’ve asked for at that moment, “Oh, that’s gonna happen.” A little advice, reader: If you want real-world information at a moment like that, the person to ask is a woman who changes twenty diapers a day.
(Followup: He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. But we’re done with that middle-of-the-bed thing till junior high. And tonight’s batch of clean laundry got put away after he went to bed.)
Sadly, I think it’s almost a dad’s prerogative to drop a kid on his head at least once in the child’s young life. Don’t feel so bad, though. A friend of a friend, who happens to be a surgeon, fell asleep in the hospital while holding his newborn, and you guessed it — said newborn slowly slid down his legs and bonked his head on the floor. On his first day of life, no less! That’s got be a record. No worries, though, baby was fine, and first-time dad got his requisite dropping-baby-on-head moment out of the way in mere hours of his kid’s lifetime.
Who can forget that first fall (off a bed, always) of that first baby!?! (My first is almost 7 and I still cringe.) Of course, I have a theory about babies bones … could be wrong but I have taken the occasional comfort in it … could it be that the reason why babies bones are softer than ours so that they bounce better, thus protecting them more? I mean, as they learn to stand, walk and run, they do take quite the beating on floors and ground: carpet, wood, pavement, the works!
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