Contact Sports

Jackson is 16 months today! Wowee!! I swear every age is a new and fun time at our house. He is such an awesome little boy and everyone thinks it too! His laugh is TOP NOTCH! Straight from the bottom of his belly comes this laugh that makes you laugh too. His smile lifts my heart and makes me feel better. Now he is all boy and I do mean 110%! He runs everywhere he goes. He is mischievous. He loves to get into things he knows he shouldn’t, so much so that he now knows to shake his head no when you say the word. Which would be fine except now he tells us no by shaking his head when we ask for something or want him to eat his veggies! He is talking a lot more (well for him). He says Dada, mama (which is my personal favorite), Dixie (our pooch), doggie and kitty and once he actually said Jackson. I know it sounds way advance but my mom was there and when he said it we both looked at each other and said did he just say? He has learned the sign for ‘more’ which he uses only if it is something really good like banana pudding. He can also say and sign baby. All of these are dependent on his mood, but at least we know he can do it. He is a total helper. He loves to help with the dishes which means he closes the dishwasher, sometimes he is a little too fast with his help. He is learning to follow some simple directions and goes and gets his ball or picks something up and hands it to you.

When I was pregnant and not knowing anything about what being a mommy would be like. All I felt was the urge to protect, I had said that I didn’t want Jackson to play football or hockey- high impact sports for fear of him getting hurt. This was told to my Aunt M, who being a veteran mom of 3 (one of which is a Michael if you have one you know) thought this to be quite funny. Well, fast forward to a couple weeks ago.

We have had another ER visit with Jackson-man. Like I said, he runs everywhere. He was running after my mom when I called him back to the kitchen for breakfast. I was walking out of the kitchen when I heard a loud bump and knew he had run into the wall. In our house, the baseboards are decorative and where the wall pokes out in a corner, they meet at a point. This of course is where he hit -- a couple inches either way and he would have been fine. I quickly picked him up and his forehead was already covered with blood. I recently had surgery and have no vocal range, so my scream sounds like I am very mad at a talking level. My mom came back and we worked to get Jackson to calm down and stop the bleeding. After a couple minutes, a light bulb went off and I remembered the cherished pacifier. This allowed us to get the bleeding to stop so I could call the doctor. This time I was told to pass Go and head straight to the ER. Luckily no waiting there and the doctor came in and said she could either use glue or stitch it up. Glue was less likely to scar but a much higher risk of him busting it open. Yes, when my child does something he really does it- he is always right on the edge of not being something big but they are pretty sure it is. Jason and I looked at each other and knew---stitches. He was a trooper, they wrapped him up in a burrito and for the first half he didn't cry or move. Then realizing that he couldn't move, he started to get very upset. I have much the same reaction, so I can't blame him. We were able to get through and he had 4 stitches. We called him Harry Potter since he had a scar on his forehead. And if we had any doubt that we should have gone with stitches, he fell the next day and it started to bleed and the day before he was due to get stitches out he busted open 2 of them. I have no idea how except he is a tornado. My Aunt reminded me of what I said when she heard of the latest saying that I was worried about contact sports. Well, this is what I get- His life is a contact sport.