Sunday, April 22, 2007

face plant

Yesterday I made it out to our small front garden to do some spring cleaning. I took down last year's seed heads that fed the birds who stuck around over the winter, and cleared away the old leaves, and dug out some baby weeds. I studied the tiny new shoots coming up and admired the purplish backside of the bloodroot's leaves wrapped tightly around their stems until they reach full height of about six inches and they unfurl them in their irregular, flat hand-like glory.

I was nearly finished that bed when Swee'pea came out, the first time we've really let him walk around outside. It's hard to believe it's been just about a month since he took his very first steps ever, and now he's an expert. Well, almost. He toddled into the garden with its very uneven soil. My first thought was, "Nooooo! My baby plants!" then as he lost his footing it was, "Noooo! My baby!" But it was like I was moving through molasses. He did a total face plant just in front of the mounds of new columbine, thankfully several inches from introducing his teeth or nose to the concrete edge of our porch. But the poor little guy had dirt in his eye.

We wiped him up but didn't know how to get at the dirt IN his eye. We called telehealth to see if it would work itself out or whether we should begin a campaign to remove it. After about 20 minutes of questions, they finally said we should really flush it out with tepid water, so we tried. Swee'pea didn't like it but eventually it worked, and it appears that there is no lasting damage. Unlike poor little Miss M.

12 comments:

S said...

And WonderBaby over at HBM's! Is this face-planting contagious?

Beck said...

See, you should have phoned ME. I know all about that sort of stuff. Glad he's okay, though.

Suz said...

I spent some time in the garden too this weekend - there's nothing like getting everything ready for spring. I'm sorry that your little guy got closer to the garden than he (or you) intended.

Mouse said...

Slouching Mom beat me to it--looks like this is contagious! Hopefully the dirt was a softer landing than either WonderBaby or Little Miss M got.

Aliki2006 said...

Poor sweet'pea! I'm glad he's ok--it's a rite of passage, isn't it?

Mad said...

There's a movement afoot among our children. They want to rename "spring" "fall."

Poor pea.

Mad said...

Oh and Miss M's damage isn't really lasting. She hurt herself on Wed and it's almost all gone now. These toddlers heal faster than Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Kyla said...

Wow...it is a toddler epidemic this weekend! I'm off to go wrap KayTar in bubble wrap. *lol*

Bon said...

i think it was a bad weekend for faceplants...ah spring. when a young child's fancy turns to thoughts of kerplunk.

damn good thing O stayed inside most of the weekend apparently!

NotSoSage said...

Ah, yes, the first faceplant. Mme L's was, unfortunately, on our concrete front porch when she was about 7 months old. I thought she had the sitting up thing down...guess not. I felt AWful.

Poor Swee'pea. Glad to hear that all is well.

Jennifer (ponderosa) said...

When I saw the headline in my bloglines reader I thought it was a pun. Face plant.

Wait a minute. WAS it a pun? Sorry, it's midnight, my brain is shutting down.

Love the new digs, your hub does great work.

karengreeners said...

lots of that going around. bee fell on the back porch steps and has a nice bump and scrape on her noggin to show for it.
Ah, spring.