Hard Knock Life

With the rise of power comes the inevitable potential for a crash landing. Rome learned the lesson, the Wright brothers learned the lesson, even Mervyns and Robbinson May learned it (remember when they used to have stores in every mall?!). Now the girls are learning it. With walking, comes falling. What goes up, will come down. ... sometimes face first in to the changing table. Last night Grandma was over and we were practicing walking in our bedroom just before bed time. Genevieve walked over to me and I returned her hug then turned her around and sent her back toward Grandma. She must have seen Arianna off to the side doing something interesting because she changed course, tripped on some pillows on the ground and face planted in to the changing table. The way she hit, my first thought was she busted her nose or knocked out teeth (it was really hard), but as I scoped her up to check it out I could already see the bruise forming on her forehead just south of the hairline. Parental nature kicks in and you start running through the check list: did she pass out: no, are her eyes dilated: no, is the surrounding tissue severely discolored: no, are her motor skills affected: no. Oh, last box, is she pissed off: ... big, freaking "check"! We were five minutes away from bed time when this happened, so needless to say we did not get to bed on time as the next 30 minutes were spent trying to keep an ice pack on her face. I had to give her snacks to keep in both hands so she would stop trying to pull the pack away, and she was honestly done crying about 3 minutes after the incident - but I was still sweaty and shaky for another hour or so. I had my mom keep the ice pack on her face as she took her bottle and as I laid her down she was smiling under the shadow of the knot rising off her forehead. She didn't fuss or cry all night and every time I checked on her she was sleeping peacefully, so I'm sure she's just fine, but incidents like this kind of make you want to cover them in bubble wrap and packing foam for the rest of their lives.