He Does it to Himself, I Swear

If you saw my son recently, you might think we beat him.

We don't, I swear.  But since the Bug went from toddling to full steam running in the 3 week period surrounding his birthday, its been Bug Gone Wild at our house.  Convinced he is steadier than he really is, he runs from one end of the living room to the other, narrowly avoiding coffee table corners and walls (sometimes).   He will trip over his own feet.   In his excitement last week, he tripped and fell headlong into the corner of the armchair, resulting in a cut on his eyelid.  Currently is bearing the following war scars: the pink spot where the eye scab came off, a bruise on his right cheek (don't know where that came from), a bruise on his right mid-shin, a bruise on his left ankle, and a cut on his left wrist (no, also not us, I swear).

Last Saturday, I took him to the park to meet our weekly mommy group.  We had done a "kiddie potluck" to try to exchange new foods for our picky eaters.  Not only was my kid the only one not interested in food, he insisted on charging through the middle of the blankets and food and mommies and babies to make his way to the playground, where he could happily stand near the playset underneath bigger kids who might fall on him, sucking on a bink covered in mulch (yeah yeah, we're working on breaking him of the pacifier, too). 

He loves the swings.  This particular park has one particular baby swing that is a big, hard plastic seat, designed for babies who may not be sturdy enough to sit up without back support, in addition to all those filmsy rubber swings.  The Bug, seeing a kid jump out of the baby seat, broke free of my struggling grasp and ran towards it.  Unfortunately, the thing was still swinging, and before I could reach him, the plastic seat had swung forward and smacked him in the mouth, knocking him down. 

Screaming ensued, and while I picked him up and soothed him, I realized every parent at the park was looking at me like I had just invoked Satan and beat him with a stick while speaking in tongues.

He does it to himself, I swear.