The Glass Table Incident

The grocery cart

When I was 5, I busted my chin open and needed stitches. My mom was at work and my brother and I were playing in the basement. My dad was fixing something on the "work" side of the basement and my brother and I were playing on the other side. I don't think we had a TV down there back then. Even if we did...there probably wasn't much to watch, especially for kids. As I remember it we were entertaining each other by playing grocery store. I think I climbed in the grocery cart and he was going to push me. Bad idea! I fell and hit my chin either on the corner of the glass top coffee table (crazy to even think about that now...right?) or on the basement floor. Either way, my chin was split open and I was bleeding...alot.

I started screaming and my dad ran out of the back room. He started yelling "What happened, what happened?!?!?" I think between the two of us we finally got the story out...but in the mean time he scooped us both up, one in each arm, pressed a washcloth to my chin and bolted up the stairs. I think he was yelling at us the whole time...which I didn't understand. He threw us in the car (no car seats back then of course) and drove us to the hospital where my mom was working. I got stitches, they got rid of the glass table, and that was the end of it.

So today, Caleb [while doing something he clearly shouldn't have been doing at the playground] hit himself in the head. As a result he had a HUGE goose egg on the side of his head (scary) and we wound up in the ER. Thankfully he was OK. I didn't yell... but the whole ride there I kept asking him {in  that deep stern mommy voice that I have] why he did that? and didn't he know better? I couldn't help myself...I was so scared and upset and surprised at the same time. I was mad at myself for not being closer and keeping a better eye on him. I was just kind of beside myself and that day when I was 5 came flooding back and I wished all I had to do to keep protecting him was to get rid of a glass table.