Do You Ever Wonder?

Do you ever wonder how? Do you ever wonder why? These are two things that I do on a daily basis. Occasionally I will wonder about normal things, but mostly I wonder about my children. Seriously. And it’s probably not what you are thinking.

Yes, I wonder how they are doing during the day. Are they doing ok at school? Are they nervous or lonely? Are they concerned about something? But mostly I wonder how they have managed to stay alive so long. Yes, you read that correctly. Surely there are other parents that have this same thought!

My kids are so accident prone. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them not to do something or how many times I tell them the proper way to do something, they still manage to get hurt. Anyone else?? I honestly have no idea how my kids are still in one piece.

I will give you a few examples. I have a two-year old. He is probably the worst of the children right now. I’m still up to debate on whether that is because of his age or his personality. Either way, it’s not good at the moment. A few months ago, he decided that he was going to scale the ladder to my daughter’s top bunk. The other kids were in the room with him. One of the girls came running to me to have me take him down off the bed. He knew he was about to be in trouble. He had been told many times to stay off the ladder to the top bunk. Up until that moment, he had yet to actually make it all the way to the top bunk. So, in his haste to not get caught, he tried to get back off the bed. Instead of going back to the ladder to climb back down, he decided to just go over the railing on the top bunk. He fell face first into the wooden side rail of the bed under him. Let me tell you, that is one scream that I hope we don’t replicate any time soon!

Thankfully he was ok. He ended up with a huge dent in the side of his head where he hit the wooden side rail. I immediately sent a picture to my sister-in-law who is an RN. She told me what I already figured was what I needed to do which was watch for signs of concussion. I’ve had to do that a few times before, so nothing new to me. I made him stay awake all day that day. By bed time, he seemed ok other than the massive bruise starting on the side of his head. I spent that night waking up every hour to check on him. By the next morning, he seemed completely normal and didn’t even care about the goose egg on his head. He tried to climb the ladder again the next afternoon. Kids. I don’t understand them!!

The next example is also from said two-year old. This one I really don’t understand at all. What could possibly have been going through his head?? Why this would even cross one’s mind is something I will never be able to comprehend. This whole activity went down (literally) while I was using the restroom. It was also not too long after the bunk bed incident. I have yet to stop being amazed at how quickly kids manage to get into something and hurt themselves.

Anyway, as I said, I was out of the room. In the two minutes I was gone, the miniature human decided to climb onto the dining room table. He was up there jumping around and thoroughly enjoying himself. I heard just a tiny snippet of what was going on and proceeded to holler at him to get off the table. He apparently didn’t listen to what I told him to do. Or at least thought my way of getting off the table was not exciting enough. My four-year old decided to “help.” But he didn’t help in a normal, well-thought-out way. He handed the two-year old his little ride on tractor. No joke. He thought it was a good idea to have his brother ride his tractor on top of the dining room table. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Yep, he rode his little tractor right off the edge of the dining room table. He landed flat on his face. My daughter was in the other room working on her school work. As soon as she heard the tractor, she ran to the table, but didn’t quite make it in time to catch him. She got there just as his little face was assaulting the floor.

He, again, let out a terrible scream and was bawling when I came back into the room. He looked at me and stumbled over for some comfort. I held him until he stopped crying and proceeded to check him out. He had another goose egg on his forehead. We went through concussion protocol again. How many times do you have to do that with someone under school age?!

Once the major waterworks were over and I deduced that he was ok, I asked what happened.

Laiyla explained the whole story that unfolded while I was out of the room for literally two minutes. Once she was done explaining what happened, I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, cry, or scold the four-year old along with his little brother! Why are boys such a mess?!

Those are only two examples of the ways my kids dream up to get themselves hurt. Is it just my kids?? Please tell me that everyone has kids do this stuff! I will say, for how many times they have managed to hurt themselves, they (thankfully) have not had any major injuries. How? I have no idea. God has definitely been protecting them! And I am very thankful for that since it seems that I can’t keep them from hurting themselves!

I do tend to think that boys are much worse than girls. Don’t get me wrong, my girls have managed to hurt themselves in some pretty amazing ways too, but I think the boys have tipped the scales in their favor in the recent months. Are boys generally more accident prone than girls? I remember my brothers getting hurt all the time. My sister and I got hurt fairly often too, but the boys were a whole different ball game. No joke, the ER knew each of us by first name when we were kids. If it weren’t for the fact that my dad was a regular in the ER too, I think they probably would have thought we were without supervision!! Anyway, girls are rough, but boys think they need to take that to a whole new level!!

So, do any of you wonder?? Do you wonder how? Do you wonder why? I wonder all the time. With kids this accident prone, I honestly wonder how the human race has survived. Surely it can’t just be my kids that manage to do these things. And since that is most likely the case, how in the world have we all survived life?! God definitely knew what he was doing when he created humans. He made us all very resilient!! But, even with all the resiliency, I still wonder. I probably shouldn’t, but I still wonder.

I hope you all have a wonderful and uneventful weekend!