Way To Go Dad

One of my friends told me about a time he was cleaning up the family room at the end of the day. On this particular day the TV remote control ended up over by the TV so my friend picked it up to put it away. Just as he threw the remote onto the couch, his daughter ran out from the bedroom between him and the couch and took the remote in the forehead. Instead of it being the end of the day, he ended up going to ER for his daughter to have several stitches.

I used to laugh whenever I heard that story. I mean, come on, how often does something like that happen? Sure, there was the one time when Caden was 4 weeks old and I set him on the couch while I picked up his pacifier that ended up under the couch. He rolled off the couch but I caught him before he hit the ground so that doesn't really count. Then this weekend happened...

Friday after work, I was sitting on the floor with the boy. We are on the floor in the family room and Mamma Spice was up at the bar looking towards us. When I say sitting, I mean he was actual sitting up on his own which is one of the coolest things I have seen him do so far. Sometimes it helps if you hold down his legs but he has the balance almost mastered; the one area he is missing is "the recovery" when he goes too far to one side or too far backwards.

So here we are on the floor and he is sitting up without any support; I'm thinking that if he falls to the side I really need to catch him before he whacks the table with his head. And if that would have happened I would surely have saved him, but unfortunately it didn't go down that way.

Have you ever had the experience of missing something obvious, like when you are looking for your sunglasses and they are on your head? Well, I knew that there were only 3 ways Caden would fall; left, right or backward, and darn it I had the right side covered, but that didn't seem to help much when he fell, no slammed over backwards. THUMP, Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Definitely some impressive parenting on my part.

Later that night, I took him into his room so I could change his diaper, the content of which is really something these days. I don't know if I misjudged the distance or if he grew 6 inches that afternoon, but when I put him down on the changing pad he smacked the back of his head on the baby wipe warmer. THUMP, Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh. At this point every time I come near him he gives me "the look," but somehow we make it through the rest of the night without incident.

Saturday afternoon, I was taking him out of his swing when my BlackBerry started buzzing (vibration mode, I mean if you are going to carry one you might as well get something out of it). I undid the safety belt on the swing as I answered the phone and I had my free hand up blocking Caden should he fall forward; unfortunately, when he did fall forward the swing also went backward just far enough so when he hit my hand it was on the way down and did nothing to prevent the face plant. THUMP, Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh. The fall probably would have knocked out a tooth if he had any.

Kids are weird in that they still love you no matter what you do (well at least at this age)and let me be the first to say it is a good thing. We made it through the rest of the weekend and thank goodness didn't ended up at the hospital, but in the end I don't think I will laugh at my friend's story anymore.