A portrait of my child, once a week, every week in 2013

This week was rough. Rough on this girl. And rough, might be putting it mildly. Somehow in the wee hours of Tuesday morning she managed to pop her elbow out of socket. Her and I were up for a few hours at 2 am before I realized she wasn’t using her arm at all. By 7 am I realized a visit to the doctor was in order. By 8 we were on our way to the ER, since our office couldn’t be sure they could fix it, and couldn’t get us in for 2 more hours. We spent 4 miserable hours in the ER, getting X-rays, and loads of tears at the sight of each new person, only for them to say they must have popped in back in during the exam. Ugh.

Thursday the poor kid(who now walks!!) was dancing like she does, and lost her balance. Face, meet coffee table. Bloody lip and tears ensue. She was fine shortly there after, however I made the mistake of still giving her a pacifier at bedtime. 45 minutes later she woke up screaming with a very swollen and painful looking lip. Luckily some Tylenol and a pear to eat solved the problem.

Toddlers are amazing. And so scary. She is a walking accident waiting to happen. Everything is dangerous for her now. Everything. And she seems to know it, and seek out the things most dangerous. I’m hoping she doesn’t inherit my knack for injuring myself. Learning to allow her to have the space to grow yet still protect her is something I fear I will struggle with for the rest of my life. I never realized how fitting the term toddler was until I had one.

My favorite photo this week was this little girl painting.