Her little accident triggered my own memories of childhood and all of the little (and not so little) accidents that occurred, could have occurred, or never occurred and yet, we all still survived!
My brother Peter was the king of "accidents" in our family. Okay, I pushed him on the hopity-hop that Christmas night, causing him to careen forward into the corner of the wall, resulting in a run to the hospital that night. THAT was totally my fault - but there were plenty of others!
"Don't run in the house!" Of course we did, and Peter ran through the back screen door, breaking the glass at the bottom with his knee, resulting in a run to the hospital.
"Don't play on the roof!" Of course, he did, and fell off, ripping the wart from somewhere on his leg clean out. No hospital run there!
"Don't play with the cigarette lighter in the car!" Of course I believed Peter when he told me that it didn't get hot when the car wasn't on, resulting in almost losing my thumbprint and hiding what we had done from my mother!
"Don't play on the boat!" My mother's old National sailboat parked on its trailer in the back yard. Of COURSE we ran the length of it, back and forth, almost cutting the dog in half numerous times as the rudder went up and down with each length!
"Laura Susan - Get That Piano Ready!" My biggest, by far, was an unfortunate piano accident in 8th grade when I was accompanying my mother's elementary class for an entire student body assembly. The piano was facing the wrong way on stage, and I attempted to move it myself, giving the old upright a good shove at the top and sending it flat over on it's back in front of everyone. To add insult to injury, the maintenance guys righted it and I still had to play it. (It didn't sound so good. Piano's aren't meant to do that!)
The point is this - we didn't have car seats, we barely had seat belts, we ran wild all summer and after school and almost killed each other on numerous occasions, but never actually succeeded! We didn't have child safety caps (although they would have been a good idea when I found the orange flavored Bayer's Children's Aspirin and consumed the entire bottle!) At the tender age of 13 I was allowed to move a piano, for goodness sake!
Even with all of today's safety precautions, my own daughter has managed to cut her chin open falling off of a stool in the kitchen, stab almost through a toe with the grill cleaner-offer-scraper-thing, consume a wood-chip from the playground at latch-key, fall from the top of the slide, be knocked off of the dock my over zealous dogs time and time again, lose toe nails and much more than I'm certain I don't know about or have blocked for my own mental well being.
Stitches, boo-boos and band-aids are a rite of passage from childhood to adult. Maybe with the faster pace of the world today versus the world of old we are better off without all of the car seats, air bags, etc. - but still - aren't these some of the stories that we share and laugh about around the bonfire and dinner table when we get back together with friends and family? I hope so - because they are MUCH funnier the second or third time around!
Abby Jane - here's some options for you to consider when you get a bit older and need to tell your first boo-boo story...
- Fight on the playground - and you beat the 2nd grader fair and square!
- Rockem-Sockem Robots match, and you lost - but he took a good beating!
- Blindsided by a run-away kick-ball!
- Roller Derby accident.
Hopefully some of these make your future dinner table / camp fire stories!
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