Isn’t there an insurance for this?

My son Adam is six feet tall, slim, dark, handsome. He lives on his own now, and by all accounts (apart from tendon-revealing incidents with a katana), managing well. He cooks, he cleans (so he says), he goes to school, he pays his bills. He even walks.

It was not always so. Once, many years ago, wee Adam, then 15 months old and only just walking, decided he would walk to Mummy. Mummy, after all, looooooved it when baby Adam walked to her! So off he sets.

Unfortunately, Mummy was sitting on the couch at the time. The couch, baby Adam soon discovered, was not nearly as firm and supportive a walking surface as the floor. He teetered and he staggered a few wobbly steps, before tumbling forward, his short arms reaching towards their goal — Mummy.

His short arms, tipped by pudgy fingers. His fingers which, though pudgy, managed to slip RIGHT UP MUMMY’S NOSE. One small finger in each nostril. The boy was aiming for brain, and, Ye GODS, it hurt. The tears, they streamed down Mummy’s face… which was a little confusing since Mummy was also laughing.

Some things are just too ridiculous to be taken seriously, you know? Even when they hurt.

It could have been worse, though. A woman I know had a lively two-year-old who broke her nose. Yup. She was reading a bedtime story to him, and so great was his delight at a particuarly gripping bit of Bob the Builder that he flung himself backward against his mother’s body — the back of his rock-hard head making bone-breaking contact with her nose.

Ouch.

This sort of thing, perhaps not as drastically, happens every day. Becky’s son unwittingly inspired this post by recently plugging his mother with a hot wheels car, right in the face. Those things are hard.

Ouch.

I note that all my stories are of boys. I’m SURE there are equally lethal little girls out there. Hey… Let’s hear them! Have you been injured by your loving offspring, male or female? Any tales from the front you care to share?

Come out, wounded parents, and tell me your stories!