at least *he* has manners

Unlike his mother.

Nanny reports that this morning at the play-place they attended, when he pushed passed her to get from one place to another, he said “excuse me.” Of course it came out more like A-scuuze Me.

He quite frequently says Thank You, whether you are handing something to him, or he to you. Sometimes he throws in a Your Welcome. (Dank Ye-oo. Yurrr Wekom.)

I love how he still sounds like a dispaced Italian.

…I, on the other hand, feel like I have completely lost my politeness filter.

A friend was reporting to me yesterday morning that her 8-month-old had fallen and hit her head.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” I responded, utterly guilelessly. I had to backpedal hard and explain, but really it just doesn’t get much better. That I am relieved that other people’s kids fall down and hit their heads. Since Jonah still does it with such alarming frequency; another topple happened just the other morning, as he was climbing on a chair to get to the toiletries on the bathroom counter (he can’t walk but he sure can problem solve — chair equals improved access — and climb; the fact that he should not have been in there unsupervised is not such a badge of honor for us as parents; we were both getting ready for the day, we weren’t on top of his whereabouts).

I’ve had one friend suggest we keep him in a fleece hat (i.e. one step short of a helmet).

Later that morning I was at the park with another mom friend, confessing to her my faux pas. She shared a story of her kid falling off the table at the pediatrician’s office. I told her about the time Jonah fell off the changing table.

Fifteen minutes later she was climbing a play structure with her kid, literally on top of him like a spider, and he still managed to slip and hit his head, causing an immediate goose egg, the actual shape and size of at least a chicken egg, to swell up.

He seemed unfazed though, so we went off to music class, where before the class even began, I watched another toddler stand up from his mother’s lap and topple over like a felled sappling, smack on his head. And then get up again, and after a brief cuddling, trot off again.

All of which is to say, I’m kind of relieved that my kid isn’t the only one who lands on his head. And for the most part, at least as far as I can see, they all seem to be fine.

They’re still mostly cartilage at this point, right?

3 comments for “at least *he* has manners

  1. April 17, 2009 at 5:30 am

    When Noah was almost two, we went to an out-of-state business meeting. We decided to go down to the hotel lobby to visit with friends. On the way out of our room, Noah ran head first into the corner of the door as Sean was opening it. While we were down in the lobby, he climbed onto a luggage trolley, lost his balance, and hit his head again. He went to bed with two bruises on his forehead.

    He woke up vomiting.

    We got to spend the middle of the night trying to find an emergency room in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Kentucky. And it turned out that the vomiting was just an unrelated virus (that he quickly passed on to his baby brother).

    Kids scare you to death, but the falls usually aren’t nearly as bad as they look. And, as the doctor told me, there’s a reason that God made the forehead the toughest bone in the body.

    Katie’s last blog post..Covert Operations

  2. allison
    April 17, 2009 at 10:31 am

    Such a relief to hear these stories. My son seems to have a bruise on one side (or both)of his forehead at all times And I am a complete helicopter mother. I hover at all times. There is just so much you can do. He now is obsessed with climbing chairs. And oh how I wish my son had so many words. I am very jealous! But it will come soon enough I guess :)

  3. Nana
    April 19, 2009 at 9:28 am

    It really makes some kind of moronic sense that kids fall on their heads when they start to begin to climb and toddle. Their heads are so much bigger in proportion to their bodies. Learning to balance is hard. Thank goodness it all seems to even out as they get older. Maybe that is why their skulls don’t fuse till they are older so they don’t do any real damage to themselves.

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