Rough and tumble – in the wars

As a baby, I never really thought N got hurt very often.  Even as a toddler and being at nursery, there were only a couple of times he got bangs and bruises.  Until his first couple of weeks in school he’d never needed a plaster (and even that time, I’d probably have not bothered for a grazed knee).

Ok, so he’d fallen down the stairs a couple of times – playing near, turning round and not concentrating probably being the reasons, and he’d had an almighty gouge vertically down his forehead, nose and mouth from tripping up a step at nursery and falling right into the edge of the door frame.  But on the whole, no emergency hospital visits, no broken limbs, and only the rough and tumble bruises from outdoor play.

But this weekend must have been a record.  He turned into a clumsy thing for 3 days.

On Friday he came from home with his original school uniform caked in wet sand.  He was also moaning his knees hurt.  It turned out the mucky clothes and presumably the painful legs was due to falling off a bike (or scooter type bike) at school.  I’ve no idea how, I’m assuming careless fast riding, but he denies that.  The bruises have came up on Monday.

Then Saturday he was playing out in the garden riding his gator around on the wet grass.  Our patio and grass is separated by a low wall, and at the end of the patio and wall, there’s a muddy garden patch on a slope between the grass and patio.  I was on the phone and heard screaming, hung up and found N crying like anything coming in for a cuddle.

I couldn’t work out what he’d done, or where he’d hit to be hurt.  All I heard was ‘fell of the gator’.  Now it’s a pretty stable thing, untippable from normal driving.  But I noticed it had a front wheel jammed against the end of the wall, preventing it from tipping  down the muddy slope.  I couldn’t work out what part of the body hurt and where he’d hurt it.  I was getting shakes of the head suggesting, wall, patio, gator.  So a bit of a mystery and no sign of anything injured….until bedtime, when I spotted a black eye coming up.

Oops.  I’ve still a few days later, got no idea quite how it happened.

Then early on Sunday morning, N was hanging at the top of the stairs, talking to his dad downstairs, and me upstairs.  Next thing I knew there was a series of thuds and crying again.  Thankfully our stairs go round a corner so there’s only 5 he could have fallen down.

Sore back of head and back.  I do despair that he doesn’t learn to concentrate by the stairs.  Thankfully children do just fall, and don’t try to stop themselves like adults do, so the head stopped hurting quickly, and he’s not been moaning about any other pains.  Although he does have 3 small bruises along his spine.  We’ve not had a stair gate for a few years now (it was broken anyway), and he manages to ride his bike, scooter, trike and roller skates without falling over, so how he manages to be clumsy on his own two feet I have no idea.

I couldn’t believe he’d hurt himself 3 times this weekend.  Hopefully that’s it for a while.

Neither my brother or I ever got particularly injured (apart from him sticking a finger in my eye, and me falling off a stool and banging my head once, we’d never been to A&E as children) from general play.  Sports injuries as we got older, but not accidents.  So it’s a bit of a new thing for me.  My mum did used to say I was always covered in bruises on my legs as a child though – so maybe he just bruises easily like I did.

Fingers crossed he’s not someone who breaks limbs all the time.  I’m not sure I could deal with that.  Bruises yes, broken limbs no.

Are your children always getting into the wars, or are they less clumsy?