Well, it finally happened. The thing we have been dreading ever since we moved into this house four years ago this week. A child fell down the hard cement and tile stairs that lead to our front door.
I was on my way to pick up Nicholas after school, since the bus doesn't come then. As I was walking out the door, Noah decided he wanted to come too. First, he brought me a shirt instead of shorts. Then he couldn't find both his sandals. By the time we got out the door, we were very late indeed. I told him that Nicholas was probably going to meet us at the garage by the time we finally got there. (He normally walks home, unless it is raining, bitterly cold, or mega hot like this day) In his anxiety to "hurry" down the stairs, he tried to reach for the banister way before he was close enough to do so. He reached much too far forward, lost his balance and went sliding headfirst down the stairs. I was ahead of him, and rushed back to try and stop him, but by the time I got there he had already stopped himself with his hands.
It was a blessing that he fell forward, as he was able to absorb the brunt of the fall with his hands. Also, he didn't go down all the stairs, just 3 or four. Still, they are extremely hard and sharp and he did cry quite a bit both from shock and actual pain. I sat and held him for quite a while, (yeah, we were way late by now) and he was able to eventually walk down the stairs with me holding his hand. There was no blood and nothing seemed broken, just kind of sore.
We picked up Nicholas about 300 yards from the house, and got him a popsicle out of the basement freezer to cool him off. Noah was outside riding his bike when Chris got home from work. The first thing he said to me was, "What happened to Noah? He looks like he was in a barfight." I didn't know what he was talking about at first, there had been no marks on him when I sent him out to play. Then I remembered the fall down the stairs. The bruises took a while to show up, but show up they did.
He doesn't like having pictures taken of his "owies". But I managed to talk him into this one, the next morning.
Along with the lovely cut/bruise on his nose, there was a red welt under his left eye and a goose egg on his forehead. My poor baby. By the way, know you all know exactly what I look like first thing in the morning. 😉