Bonk

There are times when Sam is driving me absolutely crazy when I wonder if I have any maternal instinct at all and then something happens that confirms that it actually exists but it may be somewhat twisted.

Yesterday after a quick trip to the bread store, an hour in the library where Sam was perfectly behaved we headed to the park for a bit of outdoor recreation. As always, he wanted to spend time on the (very boring for mom) swings and of course he wanted underdogs; “I want to go higher mama! Higher!” I told him to hang on tight and pushed him so high the chains what somewhat slack but not so high it looked as though the swing was going to loop over the top, my constant fear as a child. The fateful moment came when he decided to point at something in the “higher!” mode. I gave the involuntary maternal scream and watched helplessly as his body catapulted off the swing and onto the (well mulched) ground below with the sound of the air being knocked from his body. Then dreaded silence but it was the silence of the wind up, an indication that he was alive and conscious. I ran to him, gathered him up, and kissed him repeatedly and thankfully. Then I said “I told you to hang on with both hands!” I’m sure that was very comforting to him.

He is fine, he’ll survive, and I hope he learned something from his adventure. In retrospect, I’m very glad they’ve switched out all those lovely and heavy metal swings of my childhood with the flimsy butt-pinching slings of today. The kids don’t know what they’re missing by way of fun and I don’t want to have to worry about one of those swings providing a secondary blow. I don’t remember ever being hit by one of those swings but I’m sure it happened regularly to other kids. Let’s not discuss the quality of my memory here.

Perhaps his fall knocked something loose in his brain because he’s just started color coding everything. Yesterday he built a blue tower out of Duplo blocks for me and a green one for Ben, then did the red ones for I don’t know, maybe an imaginary friend. The yellow ones are hay to be attached to his tractor so they don’t count as a tower even though it’s one heck of a towering stack of hay. Later that day lined up all his refrigerator letters by color.

If this crash = color coding, I wonder what the inevitable next one will bring?