Falling Down
Abbie has been walking now for about seven months. That’s almost half of her life. You’d think that after doing anything for your life, you’d be pretty good at it. Abbie keeps falling and otherwise having accidents. For comparison, I’ve been driving for about as proportionally long in my life, and I don’t crash on a daily basis. In fact, I’ve never been in an accident. That was may fault. And was turned into insurance.
It’s not like she’s the 17-month-old equivalent of a fall-down stumbling drunk. Abbie does fairly well in her walking; she just crashes occasionally. I think toddlers are only allowed to be frighteningly far behind developmentally in one area before their parents take drastic action, like calling in a therapist or finding medieval-looking correctional devices to fit around her legs, and Abbie has already decided that talking is her one area.
Sometimes the crashes are intentional. If I’m holding her hand while we walk through a store, and I try to lead her someplace she doesn’t want to go,* she will suddenly go limp. This is an impressive skill that involves turning every bone in her body into some sort of soft, gelatin-like substance, like Cool Whip or a mousse with extra hold. She then assaults my arm, attempting to yank it out of its socket with all 27-pounds of her existence as she collapses into a nondescript wad of toddler and occasionally whines for added effect. If she’s lucky I let and go and she roams free like a majestic eagle, a flightless stumbling giggling eagle. For example, we spent this morning shopping for Baby Vital Supplies. It was approaching lunch, she was tired and cranky, and decided she had enough of being led by the hand. I, also tired and cranky, decided following her would be easier than holding her up by one hand, and left her to scurry with the currents of pedestrian traffic.
Sometimes the crashes are accidents. When she gets excited, like when she realizes that daddy just gave up trying to hold her hand, she starts walking faster. She takes two successful steps, thinks she can go faster, takes two quicker steps, thinks she can go faster, and repeats the process until she hits speeds that would have been purely theoretical to her a month ago. Once she hits Toddler Warp Speed 1, she quickly finds something to trip over like a fallen branch or irregularly placed carpet fiber, and topples forward. Usually she lands on her hands or forearms or at least on an ancillary body part like her forehead. For example, when she darted away this morning, I usually let her take several steps before rushing after her because I figured I could save my energy for swooping her off the ground and tickling her mercilessly after she fell. Sadly, sometimes her mouth breaks her fall though, and I have the red-stained burp clothes to prove it.
Then there are the falls that are a combination of the two, when she accidentally falls harder or more awkwardly than she intended. Usually this happens when I sense her about to fall, and I loosen my grip on her so that she goes down less gently than she expected. This sounds harsh, but after she yanks my arm out of socket a dozen times it starts to go a little numb; I’m not sure I have the hand strength left to support her for a full baker’s dozen. For example, this morning we walked about the store while mommy shopped for bedding. I felt her knees buckle and let her slide to the floor on her bottom. Abbie was already in gelatinous mode though, and fell back onto her head with enough force to possibly dent a marshmallow, assuming we’re talking about a fresh marshmallow and not a Lucky Charms marshmallow. Blinded by pain, the physical kind from conking her head and the emotional kind from not being able to yank daddy’s arm, she started screaming.
I carried her over to mommy to signal that she was done shopping. I think she still had some shopping to do, but she wasn’t entirely disappointed because I gave a blanket approval to almost everything in her cart, everything but the unnecessary (to me) wall mural. She wasn’t screaming that hard.
* A “place she doesn’t want to go” is usually defined as the “place I want to go.” If that means I need to find the aisle with the dishwashing detergent, she wants to go back outside. If I need to buy my dishwashing detergent, she wants to go back outside. If I want to go back outside with my dishwashing detergent, that can throw her for a loop. Sometimes she’ll confusedly head for the dishwashing detergent aisle.
It’s not like she’s the 17-month-old equivalent of a fall-down stumbling drunk. Abbie does fairly well in her walking; she just crashes occasionally. I think toddlers are only allowed to be frighteningly far behind developmentally in one area before their parents take drastic action, like calling in a therapist or finding medieval-looking correctional devices to fit around her legs, and Abbie has already decided that talking is her one area.
Sometimes the crashes are intentional. If I’m holding her hand while we walk through a store, and I try to lead her someplace she doesn’t want to go,* she will suddenly go limp. This is an impressive skill that involves turning every bone in her body into some sort of soft, gelatin-like substance, like Cool Whip or a mousse with extra hold. She then assaults my arm, attempting to yank it out of its socket with all 27-pounds of her existence as she collapses into a nondescript wad of toddler and occasionally whines for added effect. If she’s lucky I let and go and she roams free like a majestic eagle, a flightless stumbling giggling eagle. For example, we spent this morning shopping for Baby Vital Supplies. It was approaching lunch, she was tired and cranky, and decided she had enough of being led by the hand. I, also tired and cranky, decided following her would be easier than holding her up by one hand, and left her to scurry with the currents of pedestrian traffic.
Sometimes the crashes are accidents. When she gets excited, like when she realizes that daddy just gave up trying to hold her hand, she starts walking faster. She takes two successful steps, thinks she can go faster, takes two quicker steps, thinks she can go faster, and repeats the process until she hits speeds that would have been purely theoretical to her a month ago. Once she hits Toddler Warp Speed 1, she quickly finds something to trip over like a fallen branch or irregularly placed carpet fiber, and topples forward. Usually she lands on her hands or forearms or at least on an ancillary body part like her forehead. For example, when she darted away this morning, I usually let her take several steps before rushing after her because I figured I could save my energy for swooping her off the ground and tickling her mercilessly after she fell. Sadly, sometimes her mouth breaks her fall though, and I have the red-stained burp clothes to prove it.
Then there are the falls that are a combination of the two, when she accidentally falls harder or more awkwardly than she intended. Usually this happens when I sense her about to fall, and I loosen my grip on her so that she goes down less gently than she expected. This sounds harsh, but after she yanks my arm out of socket a dozen times it starts to go a little numb; I’m not sure I have the hand strength left to support her for a full baker’s dozen. For example, this morning we walked about the store while mommy shopped for bedding. I felt her knees buckle and let her slide to the floor on her bottom. Abbie was already in gelatinous mode though, and fell back onto her head with enough force to possibly dent a marshmallow, assuming we’re talking about a fresh marshmallow and not a Lucky Charms marshmallow. Blinded by pain, the physical kind from conking her head and the emotional kind from not being able to yank daddy’s arm, she started screaming.
I carried her over to mommy to signal that she was done shopping. I think she still had some shopping to do, but she wasn’t entirely disappointed because I gave a blanket approval to almost everything in her cart, everything but the unnecessary (to me) wall mural. She wasn’t screaming that hard.
* A “place she doesn’t want to go” is usually defined as the “place I want to go.” If that means I need to find the aisle with the dishwashing detergent, she wants to go back outside. If I need to buy my dishwashing detergent, she wants to go back outside. If I want to go back outside with my dishwashing detergent, that can throw her for a loop. Sometimes she’ll confusedly head for the dishwashing detergent aisle.
posted by Matt at
9:43 PM
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