13 months

t h e   m o n t h   o f   i n j u r i e s

i read somewhere
that
12 months
marks the beginning
of the period
in which your child
will need
the greatest
supervision.

the period
during which
your child
will always
have
at least one
bruise
or gash
or injury.

when i heard
stories about toddlers
falling into pools
or
burning themselves
on the stove
or injuring
themselves
in some awful way...
i used to think:

how could the parents let that happen?!
i would never let that happen!

i laugh about that now.
how naive i was!



what i have learned
in
the last few months
(particularly this month)
is that
it takes
a second.

you turn
your back
and...

plop!

splash!

bang!

sometimes you
are right there
and
they fall
in some freakish way
and
you cannot
grab them in time.

i learned that
in the hotel room
in milan
just before
we had
to get on the train home.
i turned my back
on vee
to put something
in the suitcase
b a m !
vee,
who was laying on the bed
and absorbed with her book,
decided to
dive off the bed.

she hit her head
h a r d.
there was screaming.
there was blood.
i was in a panic.

after a good
hour of panic
(fortunately grub was calm)
and
a very high level of
stress and worry
on the train home
from milan,
she ended up
with a big bruise
on her forehead
but
still in one piece.



. . . . . . . . . . . .

when
i was in mexico
i bought vee
two little chairs
made by a carpenter
in the mercado.
i envisioned her
sitting on them
reading her books.

haaa!

little did i know
vee had
an entirely different
plan for her chairs...

in vee's world
everything
is to be pushed.
the chairs
became
the perfect
mode of transportation...



every
now and then
she trades
up
for more
push power...

from chair to chariot...



from chariot to office chair!



lately
the little chairs
have been
the favorite.
there are two
so she is
not trapped
by the confines
of
the living room/office.
she now has
free run
of
the entire apartment
by moving
from the chair
on the wood floors
to
the chair
that sits the tiny step up
on the tile floors.

violà the pony express!



her
little fingers
already grab
e v e r y t h i n g ...









and
her chairs
are
the bridge
to
a whole new world
to investigate.







so
we
have been
adjusting.

we have learned
that
we can no longer
sit & watch vee.
at least not
for more than
a minute or two.

we cherish
the time
she sits
still
and reads.



enjoying some
french decor magazines
(dad's influence?).




or
a nice book
about microbes
(mom's influence?).

and
as the days
shorten
we are trying
to get her
outside
to enjoy
the
last
warm days
of autumn...



before we
are stuck
inside
for the winter



and
chaos ensues.

it is fortunate
for us
that we are soon
off
to a warmer climate...
she would most certainly
find new
(and more dangerous)
areas of the apartment
to explore!



xo