Black Eyes R Us
I have a dream.
It's a big dream.
A VERY big dream.
I dream that one day Alexis will wake up and she won't be accident prone anymore.
I know, it's probably the most unattainable dream of all time.
For as long as the kid has been alive, she has had an amazing ability to find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The floor has been known to reach out and grab her. Walls attack her. Tables jump out in front of her. She's a magnet for inanimate objects. In a typical week, she will crash into a wall at full speed at least twice, smash her head on the underside of a table once, and trip while standing perfectly still at least once.
For a while, I wondered if there was something wrong with her. Maybe a spatial thing? A balance thing? Something?
But, no, she just has an amazing ability to sustain injuries. AMAZING.
You guys, Alexis did not make it through a single week of summer camp without getting an Incident Report. Every single week, without fail, she was injured somehow. And only about half of the injuries were self-sustained.
The other half were a matter of just plain being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One time a kid fell off of the monkey bars and landed squarely on top of her, knocking her to the ground. Another time someone accidentally pelted her too hard with a flying ball while playing dodgeball. She was the victim of an incident involving a water balloon, another with an exploding soda water bottle, and once she was knocked over when another kid bent over to grab a rock.
I'm not exaggerating. I wish I were because I started to really feel bad for the camp staff who had to write up all of the incident reports. They felt awful about it every time she got hurt, but it's just her way.
She's not immune to injury when she's around me either. One evening we needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store. As we walked down the main aisle at the front of the store, I suddenly found myself being ran over by a wheelchair. Literally. As in, the woman pushing the wheelchair was all ZOOMY ZOOMY ZOOOOM! and ran over my foot with both of the wheels on one side of the wheelchair. My first reaction was to hiss at the lady, but my second reaction was to reach out to Alexis and hold her back so she didn't get ran over as well.
You know what? It's best if when you go to grab your kid you don't have your car keys in your hand. I completely bashed her face with my keys, probably injuring her more than the wheelchair would have. WHOOPS.
Most people want to put their kids in bubbles to protect them from the world. I want to put Alexis in a bubble to protect her from herself.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Reader Comments (12)
I am right there with you. My daughter is not only accident prone she is also sickness prone. this summer started off with her deciding to ride her scooter down a huge hill resulting in her hurting her left knee. there went softball. that was the last week of school in june. had am mri scheduled for august 1st. after being on bedrest all summer you would think things went smoothly no my daughter gets strep throat and Scarlett fever which turns into streptococcus bacterial pneumonia and she ends up in the hospital on the day the MRI was scheduled which you would think is convenient. but no she needed to be sedated and couldnt be sedated. she spent the last 3 weeks of summer recovering from the pneumonia.
also forgot to say received a call from school today that my daughter fell and hurt her right knee while trying to go to the bathroom.
There was this time when I was the perfect height to be hit by my mom's elbows. She smacked me in the head at least weekly for a couple months until I grew out of it.
Sounds like it's the best that could happen for Alexis...
LOL Poor girl.
Jack is totally accident prone too. Just last night he was jumping up and down cause he was mad about something. He totally fell forward and whacked his head off the coffee table. Left a really nice bruise and bump. Where do we find bubbles for these kids?
hate to say, but i was the same way. still am. (really...i walk into walls on a regular basis, trip over nothing, standing without moving can sometimes be dangerous.) i used to think it was poor depth perception (which i do really believe i have), but now i just chalk it up to clumsy. and the fact that i have more important things to think about than where the wall is...
I had a friend like that when I was growing up. She was the most accident-prone person I'd ever seen. By middle school she'd earned the nickname "Grace" for her apparent clumsiness. But to be honest, I wouldn't really call her clumsy - kinda like Alexis, I mean your kid can dance beautifully, there's no way she's truly clumsy, right? - but my friend sure was prone to all kinds of accidents. Luckily I don't recall her ever being seriously injured. Just a million bumps & bruises along the way.
Glad to know I'm not the only one wondering if their kid has some kind of spatial problem! Dylan not only hurts himself constantly but my husband and I. It is like he has no awareness of space whatsoever. He steps on my toes daily, jams his elbow into my husband's crotch when he tries to hug him, bashes me in the head (with his head) weekly, etc. We were just discussing last night that we really need protective gear!
I hear you 100%. My son has a beautiful face, but it's constantly covered in bruises, cuts, scabs...you name it. If people didn't know me better, I swear they'd think I beat him. Better yet, they know Luca and how he's a balls to the wall kind of kid.
You're not alone.
Beware! Alexis might just grow up to be an accident-prone adult with an equally accident-prone husband. My husband and I have an uncanny knack for random injuries, often self-induced. We're constantly the butt of jokes by family and friends. We are the proud owners of 2 safety bagel slicers and 3 hardhats. There was a point in time where the Ohio Valley General ER staff knew us by first name. I think they sent a fruit basket.
By far my worst day took me to the ER twice for two completely unrelated accidents. Over lunch I dragged an office chair into my doorway to chat with a coworker. She must have said something hysterical because I threw my head back to laugh and seriously whacked myself on the wooden doorframe. After work, I am DRIVING and Husband realized my response time wasn't quite up to speed. Sure enough, I was concussed. So they send me home and Husband drops me off so he can drop our car off at the shop. I decide it would be a great time to make a sandwich and use the ginormous bread knife (which Husband cut himself with 5 months earlier) to cut the bread....and wind up in the ER getting grilled by nurses about the "domestic abuse" I was suffering through silently. I also had a tetnus shot. That night I couldn't sleep on my back (becuase my head hurt), couldn't sleep on my right side (because of the tetnus shot) and couldn't sleep on the left (because of my throbbing middle finger). But none of that mattered becuase Husband had to wake me up every 2 hours to check on the concussion.
So yes, invest in bubblewrap now. :-)
I'm so relieved to hear others have the same issue. My nephew falls frequently while standing still. His grandmother claims his mother and I are making him neurotic because we are so cautious about what we allow him to do and are religious spotters, but again the child falls and injures himself STANDING STILL. We have no desire to see what he can do given sufficient height and/or speed. As to height and elbows, one of my professors was investigated by CPS because his son was at just the right height to be constantly fighting and losing to door knobs. Luckily for him, he and his wife brought up the issue with the pediatrician long before the preschool reported the bruises.
I love that you posted this on my birthday about how my mini me is well klutzy. She is part of the non grace club like me.