Calamity Jane

We've spent the last few days trying to keep Margaret from injuring herself. Recently, she's gained enough confidence with her coordination that she does all sorts of silly things that end up leading her to say "I'm sorry" (her term for being hurt) while crying inconsolably. She then inevitably asks for a "purple towel" (which, we eventually figured out, refers to the paper towels that the daycare center uses to wrap ice packs.)

Some examples:

• On Friday, Margaret must have tripped over my feet four or five times, landing on her face each time. I would say, "Be careful Margaret," a common refrain in our world, as she passed by me, but no, she would plow right through me. And inevitably ended up on her face.

• On Saturday, Teddy and Margaret were both in swings at the park. At least twice, Margaret got down and immediately ran into the path of Teddy's swing, getting a good bonk (and bruise) on the head. It was almost too fast to stop as Margaret ran directly in front of Teddy's swing and got sideswiped. On the way home, she then started running down a steep hill. "Ummm. She's going pretty fast," I said to Abby. "Might want to slow her down."

• On Monday, I got a call from Mr. Ty at daycare who informed me that Margaret had fallen while running and had bitten her lip. After getting that call, I just laughed. How big of a klutz could she possibly be? Then when we got home, Margaret managed to bonk her head on the coffee table, smack her shin on the coffee table and take a spill, all in the span of 10 minutes.

• And today while Teddy was screaming when we got home, Margaret tripped while coming into the house and added her cries to Teddy's.

She's covered with bruises, but is also irrepressible - she asks to "run" everytime I pick her up from daycare. When the weather is nice, I let her do so (we hold hands across the street and she can't get away from me since she isn't very fast) up to the IMF building at Pennsylvania and 18th. There, she plays in the fountains for a while after which I put her in the back seat of the stroller (a story for another post since she likes the back seat in our "back or front," as she calls it, stroller) and we head for home.