Ouch!

We went for a walk on Friday, and Mabes decided to run. But then she tripped, scraped up her nose, and bruised her forehead. I can still hear the sound of her forehead hitting the sidewalk. In true Mabes fashion, she cried for all of 45 seconds while I held her, then she wanted to get down and run some more. As you can see in this picture, she's clearly broken up about the whole thing.

I feel terrible. I know kids fall, they get scrapes, big deal. And she's fine. But I keep thinking about all the things I could do to prevent this kind of thing from happening, and the only conclusions I've come to are either a) completely pad our apartment and never let her leave or b) let her leave only when wearing knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, a helmet, and perhaps a catcher's chest protector. And maybe give her a rolling backpack (you know, to prevent scoliosis) when she heads off to school. But given her parents, she'll already be enough of a huge nerd, so why give other kids ammo?

This is what sucks about being a parent. I knew I'd hurt when she hurts, but I'm still sad for her after she's moved on. Knowing that I'm not able to keep her from experiencing pain is incredibly difficult, and yet I realize that's kind of the point. She has to have those experiences, and I have to let her.

It's pretty cute when she looks in the mirror and says, "Oh, no, I have messy on my face!" When she woke up from her nap, I heard her say, "I take owwie off," I thought, "huh, wonder what that means?" It means she's picking at it--gross! So it'll probably be there a while!