Saturday-Sunday in California

On Saturday, I visited with Mom and Neil before going to the neighborhood park with my dad. John had great fun playing with the leaves and practicing his pincer grasp with the tree's berries. Unfortunately, John was ready for his nap so was mostly spacey instead of his giggly self.

Today I went to Mass at my beloved old parish. One fun aspect of visiting every six months or so is seeing the parish children in six-month snapshots. They grow so fast!

After Mass and visiting the priest and my friend Tish, I visited Dad et al. for fresh bagels with cream cheese and my dad's fabulous homemade pomegranate jelly. There poor John had his first blood-drawing injury.

I knew this day would come, but it was a bit eerie how it happened. John was toddling around the living room quite confidently and I was shadowing him since we were in a house not baby proofed (as the "baby" there is now a teenager!). I was just telling the folks that it is interesting to watch John's cycle: every time he learns a new gross motor skill, he gets clumsy again and has more accidents. But I still haven't seen him draw blood and I sure will hate when that happens . . .

In that very moment, John tripped and fell mouth-first into the coffee table. He bounced backward and fell, banging the back of his head on the wood floor. When he made contact with the table, his lower tooth bit his lower lip and his upper tooth bit the skin beneath his lip (above his chin).

I couldn't see what was what in the following moments because his little mouth was covered in blood. I was so worried he'd driven a tooth into his gum or cut himself so that he would need stitches. But once I got the blood wiped away long enough to survey the damage, I could see all would be well. After about two minutes, John was nursing and, after about five minutes, he was smiling and happily chewing on a wooden coaster, even though the blood was still trickling.

It would have happened someday and could have happened anywhere, but it sure was eerie that I was talking about it the very moment it occurred. I shouldn't tempt the devil!