Five for Five

Mini-Me begins tumbling camp today. Nothing brings as much apprehension or fear as her learning how to do tricks. The idea of her using my sofa as a trampoline or my living room rug as a gym mat sends chills through me.

So why would I put my five-year-old in tumbling?

I want her to learn how to fall; the way that doesn’t involved hurting herself.

You see, she’s had stitches in her chin five times.

The first time she dangled herself between a sofa and a chair as if she were on the parallel bars with the result that she fell splat between the two. Through profuse bleeding, I could see into layers of skin to what lay beyond. In the hospital, I held her and watched as the doctor sewed up her chin as she stared at me with big, watery eyes, too brave to cry. I remember thinking I never wanted to do this again.

Fast forward a few months when she and her brother decided to wrestle on the rug, and she landed off the rug directly onto her chin. I bravely took her to the hospital all by myself because I was the mom, and I could handle this. (Mind you that when I was a teenager, I passed out watching my mother get a blood test.)

Two weeks later the redness hadn’t disappeared yet, when at a wedding she danced over to the chair I was sitting in and came down directly on the top of it with her chin. Luckily, the wedding was next door to the hospital.

Did I mention this was all before the age of four? Three times in three years. The doctor stopped telling me that the scar would fade. It would be permanent now.

She managed a whole year without falling. My running joke at the time was that as soon as I finished paying the hospital, she would fall again. I should have known it was coming since I hadn’t sent a check to the hospital for a few months.

You’ll notice that I managed to remain calm through three incidents. In my defense, that kind of patience eventually runs out.

My children decided to fight over a wooden block that I’d bought when my son was a baby. I told them to share. I told them to stop arguing. I told them all the usual mom things. When my son began chasing her, I yelled for them to stop. Seconds later, my son was on top of her, and of course, Mini-Me had smacked her chin against the ceramic floor once again.

To say I was angry was an understatement. My mother-in-law commented as I sped to the hospital that she should have driven. I forced my son to stand at the foot of her hospital bed and watch the doctor stitch his sister’s scarred chin once again. My mother-in-law kept asking to take him from the room, but I was determined he would learn to stop playing rough with his sister. (I know, not the best idea for my son’s mental health, but still, at the time it seemed right).

It worked for awhile. The month before her fifth birthday, she attempted a trick on her scooter that she’d seen her brother do and flipped off head first, and you guessed it, landed on her chin. Back to the hospital we went. This time while she was sitting on her bed with her anxious brother lecturing her on how she wasn’t old enough to try the tricks he could do, I decided to have the talk.

You know the one about she didn’t have to have stitches for every year of her life. Five for five is a descent record to end this streak.

So that brings us to tumbling. I’m hoping that this will work. Otherwise, I think I’ll have to continue my search for a permanent chin guard or a padded suit.