Parenting 101

A lovely picture, isn't it?

The boy's mother must be so proud. The boy must be so proud. Look at that use of Crayola! I mean, come on, in the first grade and already have a framed piece of art in a public building for folks to cast their eyes on. Art aimed to bring comfort to small children, art to give their parents something to stare and talk about while the minutes tick away.

Have you figured out where we are yet? Let's try the freaking PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY ROOM WARD.

Yeah, I failed. Don't worry, everything is 95% fine, but I still failed. I broke a cardinal rule of parenting. "Thou shall not leave thine child unattended on thine bed."

We had a full day yesterday.
-A walk around the neighborhood at 8am, where Grace woke most of our neighbors with shrieks of "Bug! Bug Mama! Ant! Aaaannnnnttttt!"
-At 10am we went swimming.
-At 12pm it was naps all around.
-3pm saw a trip to Rita's for custard and then a park. Sides. Sides! Sides!!!! (Read: Slides)
- And 6pm we were brought back to reality by the large amount of laundry piled on my bed.

Grace was a wonderful helper. As I folded boxer shorts and hung shirts on hangers before they could wrinkle any further, Gracie reigned over the sock pile. She sat in the middle of our bed surrounded by her subjects. She matched them in glory and then flung them into the dungeon. She was enthralled and hadn't moved in about 10 minutes.

So I sinned. I grabbed the massive pile of clothes on hangers and dashed to the next room to deposit them in the closet. They never actually made it into the closet.

THUNK...... followed by cries.

The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. Grace was on the floor.

She was quickly calmed, but wouldn't put any weight on her left leg. We quickly located the source of pain, the instep of her left foot. Flooded with memories of past childhood injuries, we quickly loaded Gracie up to have it checked out.

By the time the x-rays had been taken and the overly compassionate pediatric doctor came into our little room to give the final report, Gracie was walking like nothing had ever happened. Squatting down on little kiddie hams in an attempt to find further imaginary ants at 9pm in the emergency room.

Rest assured, the doctor told us, there is no breaks or fractures. You were absolutely right to bring her in though, you can never tell with a two year old. If she is still walking funny in a day or two bring her to her regular pediatrician. Otherwise, she is just fine.

This morning, we still have a limp. I am glad we took her last night, because I wold have wanted to go this morning, just to be sure. Bruises still hurt though. Especially ones that take all the pressure of your body weight. Hopefully we will be able to speed up the healing process with all the extra love and ice cream that will be coming in the next few days though.