First Blood

So it happened yesterday. We were at our neighbor’s house for the big 4th of July BBQ, eating and snacking, with my daughter nearby as she was “cruising” along the furniture, as usual. Fell on her butt, as usual….BUT this time she let out her hurt cry, so I picked her up only to find blood all over her face, dress, and all the ground.
What do my wife and I do? Freak out of course! There’s nothing more horrific than seeing your infant crying and bleeding - I can’t even explain all the scary images that my mind conjured up (broken something?, Ambulance, Call 911, SIDS, Tumor,"oh God take me instead"..!!) .

Thankfully, when things settled and she was all cleaned up we found it was only a small cut on the upper lip cause by her chopping the jaw when she fell—her two bottom and only teeth went into her top gum/lip area. That would probably hurt any adult just the same; I can’t imagine what it’s like for her.
A little while later she had a fat lip (she looked like a baby Angelina Jolie), she was laughing, eating and “cruising” along again…with my wife and I really close by - I even considered padding her butt with TP like that toilet paper commercial from the 80’s – but that’s probably taking it a little too far. I don’t want to be one of those parents who buy’s their kid one of those “infant baby helmets” (that’s way too paranoid and just plain weird). But after going through something like this, I can see why they do it.
But as the other parents told us afterwards, “this is only the beginning of cuts, scrapes, bruises and bloodshed…get use to it”.