Charlie the Menace

Charlie was an accident waiting to happen today, even more so than usual. I didn't even get to witness most of it, because I worked and got home with only 2 1/2 hours to go till bedtime. But in those 2 1/2 hours Charlie outdid himself.

When I got home he was trying to hop up and down on one foot in front of an Elmo video. Unfortunately Charlie does not know how to hop up and down on one foot. He kept accidentally hopping up and down on *no* feet -- basically leaping up in the air and crashing down on his bottom.

After dinner Charlie decided he was going to play on his slide -- i.e climb to the top of it and swan dive off of it into his ball pit. Then he decided to make things interesting by climbing to the top of the slide, turning around, and keeling over backwards off his slide. I had to catch him and drag him away from the slide, enticing him with a game of kickball, which I erroneously thought would be safer.

About two minutes into the game Charlie dove for the ball and crashed head first into his toool bench. I felt a wave of Mommy guilt for luring Charlie away from the slide only to have him hurt himself anyway.

At that point I decided it was time to go upstairs to start his tubby. I turned the water on and left the bathroom for one nanosecond to throw Charlie's socks in his hamper, only to hear "AAAAAAAHHHH!" coming from the bathroom. I rushed back in time to see Charlie's feet sticking out of the tub; he had leaned over the side to get a toy and toppled in.

As soon as I fished him out he bolted out of the room. "Play catch you!" he yelled, wanting me to chase him. He promptly ran headlong into a laundry basket on my bedroom floor and went sprawling.

At this point I marveled that not only did we not end up in the ER tonight, but we never have.

I'm sure I just jinxed myself.