I Was In the Sh*t, Man!

I love our neighborhood, Park Slope. It's family-friendly to a fault, Prospect Park is awesome, and we are never lacking for playdates and fun things to do.

However, the sidewalk situ here leaves much to be desired. The sidewalks are broken and uneven and a total hazard. Today I let the Princeling run down 10th Street from 7th Ave to 6th Ave and the downhill slope gave him momentum, and then he tripped over some broken sidewalk. He landed on his face, and after some kisses and bloody-nose wipe-ups from me, we kept going. The scrapes on his head didn't seem bad enough to warrant a trip to the pediatric ER, and within minutes he was back to himself, running along 6th Ave and playing with gates and such.

"Do I have something on my face, or something?"

Once we got home and I cleaned him up he looked much better. His forehead was barely scraped but very bruised. The tip of his nose and just below his right nostril were pretty bloody, but once cleaned up they made him look like he had a bad cold. It would be funny if it wasn't so heartbreaking for me to look at.

I called the pediatrician just to be on the safe side. The nurse I spoke with told me to watch him for the next 24-48 hours for any changes in behavior, and whenever he goes to sleep to make sure I can rouse him 10 minutes later. Well, his behavior is fine. We got home and he danced to Yo Gabba Gabba, colored, and ran around the kitchen floor as usual. When I went to rouse him from his nap he didn't quite wake up, but he's always been a deep sleeper. He did open his eyes and close them again, and kept moving away from me in his sleep. Since that's normal for him I'm going to go ahead and say that he's a-ok.

My nerves, on the other hand, are shot. This whole incident is reason # 4,692 why I drink.