It's official

Yesterday afternoon and this morning confirmed my worst fears - Campbell has inherited my lack of coordination.

We visited my friend EWM yesterday afternoon in her new house, which has stairs. The big kids played out in the yard, while E and I stayed inside with Campbell. He, like Ella, is obsessed with stairs. I sat on a stool a few feet from the staircase and watched him practice on the bottom three steps. He was doing a very good job crawling up the three steps and then holding on to the banister rails to go back down. Unfortunately, I let my guard down.

Campbell crawled up five stairs and turned around to walk back down. I stood up to help, and as I did, he lost his balance while reaching for the railing. With sickening thuds, he rolled down the stairs. I was sure, based on the way he fell, that he had broken his arm. I scooped him up at the bottom, holding him while he shrieked, as E came running in from the kitchen. I checked his limbs, which all seemed to be working, and examined his head and mouth for blood. The final result - two more lumps on his forehead. He calmed down pretty quickly, but I was shaky for the whole rest of the day. I kept seeing his little life flashing before my eyes and I replayed his slow-motion roll down the stairs.

He did learn from his fall, though. As soon as I put him down when he had finished crying, Campbell headed right back to the stairs with me two feet behind him. I expected him to start climbing again, but instead he stopped, shook his head no, and made this funny little "ooohhhh" sound. He did it several more times during our visit.

This morning I fell while running, again. I used to say that I fell once a year, but this was my third tumble in 2007, so I may have to adjust my figures. I tripped over a big rock on the trail and went flying. Fortunately, my shirt and gloves took most of the damage. I have a bit of road rash on my hand, hip, and shoulder. But if I hadn't been wearing gloves and shirt, I would have been in a lot of pain.

The first thing I said after I fell was, "But I'm wearing my glasses!" Usually I only fall right after I've taken my glasses off and I haven't adjusted to the change in my depth perception. The second thing I said was, "Oh, poor Campbell." E was with me when I fell, and she laughed in sympathy. Unfortunately, I think Campbell has a long history of falls, bangs, and bruises ahead of him.

In the meantime, I'm wearing SpongeBob bandaids on my hand and nursing my bruised shoulder. Campbell, on the other hand, seems no worse for his tumble yesterday. If only I could recover that quickly.

Faceplant

It's happened again - I fell while running. And this time it's a doozy. I scraped up both hands and both knees, got a bit of road rash on my stomach, bruised my hip and knocked my chin on the pavement. Usually when I fall, I manage to roll off to one side, but this time I went flat on my stomach.

I blame the fall on my stiff neck, which I got as a result of inner-tubing behind the boat this weekend. Ella and I were on the tube together when B decided he needed to whip across the wake really fast. I lost my grip first and went flying. Julia said I did at least one somersault, but it felt more like three. Ella went flying, too, and when I popped up she was floating beside me with big, scared eyes. That night something in my neck popped and I've been sore and stiff ever since. It hurts to look down, so I wasn't watching my footing while running like I usually do. I have no idea what it was I tripped over: It could have been an ant.

Despite the bangs and scrapes, I was more worried about my glasses and my iPod, which were both tucked in the waist of my shorts. Fortunately both survived without injury.

I'm already worried about my left knee. The knee cap has already turned purple and started to swell beneath the cuts. It would be just my luck to have done some real damage this time around. I just can't seem to catch a break with running this summer.

Lily seems to have to inherited my lack of land-based coordination. Her poor knees and shins are a mess of bruises and scrapes from her many falls. Last week she wiped out at the Central Market playground and came over crying and bleeding. Once B cleaned her up, we realized that she didn't have a new injury - she had just ripped the scab off an old one.

Most of the time Lily pops right up after she falls and shouts, "I'm OK!" I would have liked to have done that this morning, but instead I just sat on the sidewalk, using my bandana to wipe off the blood and muttering miserably about how much I hate running right now.