Scarred For Life

There are many sounds which are regularly heard around a house with a toddler living in it. Three in particular usually come in sequence: the sudden crash, the brief silence, then the wailing cry.

The longer the silence, the louder the cry, the more serious the accident. So it was last Saturday afternoon, and we rushed through from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs to see what scrape G had managed to get herself into. Scrape being the operative word, as she was lying at the bottom of the stairs with a big red mark where the skin of her nose used to be.

She'd actually only fallen onto the stairs rather than crashing from the top all the way down, so at least we didn't have to take her to A&E. In fact, she'd more or less forgotten about it within five minutes. But she's been walking around all week with a big scab directly between her eyes and it still hasn't entirely healed, because the cut at the top is actually quite deep.

This has left me wondering whether she'll always have a little mark there. Will she be late for an important date/job interview/her own wedding because she's still splodging make-up all over it, cursing the day she tripped over in the hallway? If so, at least now she'll know exactly when that day was.

Chips At The Lake

The sunny weather continued all last week, and on Thursday I took G for a day trip to a couple of nearby places. We started off at Hollingworth Lake, a reservoir which doubles up as a mini-seaside resort for local people who can't be bothered to go all the way to Blackpool.

This being a mini-seaside resort, I treated us to a mini-cone of chips as a snack. Walking across the road from the chip shop to the lakefront, G managed to trip over and fall in the car park. The hot weather meant I'd not bothered giving her any tights, and as I did my best to pick her up without dropping chips all over the place, I realised G was probably going to have the biggest grazes yet on her little knees, another one of those toddler rites of passage.

But as it turned out, they were just a bit red. She was soon happy again after a few chips, although walking along the promenade involved a bit more carrying and a bit less actual walking than I'd imagined.

We drove on to Todmorden for lunch, which G ate in typical style. Forget the magic sponge, for G the best cure for any ailment is clearly a big snack.

Cut Finger

I was putting away the shopping in the kitchen earlier when I notice G walking over with her hands in front her. There was red all over her fingers, and she'd got a bit on her jumper too. I was about to castigate her for drawing on herself, when I realised that the felt pens were still well out of reach on the shelf. No, G had managed to cut herself and was bleeding.

I would probably have sprung into some kind of urgent action had G been at all bothered about this. Instead, she held out her arms and said "hands" in a confused sort of way, as I dug out the antiseptic wipes and a plaster from the medical box. Actually getting the plaster on caused a lot more upset than the injury to her finger, and she picked at it for a few minutes before settling down in front of some CBeebies, my daytime treat to her for being such a brave little soldier.

It turned out that she'd managed to break a small glass which had been hidden inside something else in the living room. As I picked up the broken bits, I found a couple dramatically stained with blood, rather in the manner of a crime scene off TV. Any guilt on my part was tempered by the fact it was hardly a major emergency, though. Given that Mrs J has managed to break each of her four limbs during her life, I'll save that for when G does something similar.

Roundabout

G likes most things in the big playground in Uppermill, but the roundabout is probably her current favourite. Whenever I take her, which is pretty often, she's usually toddling towards the roundabout as soon as we go through the entry gate, pointing expectantly.

As you can see, she enjoys it very much. The problem comes when she has to get off. After a previous occasion when she was very dizzy, attempted to toddle and fell over straight away, I've been careful to try to hold her still for a while before letting her walk, so the dizziness wears off.

But the other day, after I'd been spinning her particularly fast and for a particularly long time, even a pause didn't do the job. She started off confidently, then swayed a bit, then ended up flat on her face. This led to lots of tears and a very obvious graze on her nose. I'll make sure she sits down for longer next time.

Red Nose Day

Now that G's ability to toddle around on her own has increased, so too has the likelihood of her hurting herself. Yesterday, she was wobbling around on some concrete when she lost her balance and fell flat on her face, scraping all the skin off her nose. Once she'd stopped crying and got cleaned up, her nose was bright red against her pale face, making her look a bit like the world's youngest alcoholic.

Mrs J took this picture during G's bath last night. Evidence of why it's a good idea to learn how to break a fall using your hands.