Friday, October 05, 2007

Busted lips and skinned knees

We made it through the whole week without having to trundle down to the pediatrian's office. Woot!

However, William now has a rather spectacular mosquito bite on his cheek AND a busted lip to go with the existing bug bite on the bridge of his nose and the scratch above his eye. And there seems to be a faint scratch on his nose, too. And a huge welt of a mosquito bite on his wrist. And a skinned knee. Thank God the black eye already faded away.

My goodness, rereading that description makes me want to call CPS on myself. My poor little guy's face! But there are easy explanations for everything. Yeah, they all say that, don't they? No, really. No, really!

The weekly installment of What's Wrong with William's Face started with my picking him up at Mother's Day Out. The teachers apologized profusely for the mosquito bites, saying that apparently a lot of them were on the playground today, and even though the teachers were swatting them away, a few got to William. He seems to be allergic to them, too; they develop into big red welts, just like they do when I get bitten.

The busted lip and the skinned knee are the results of a triumphant run through the courtyard at Montgomery Bell Academy this evening. We took William to the big annual spaghetti supper and homecoming football game at David's alma mater. W was getting antsy in his stroller, so we let him out to walk around a little before the game started. He shot off in an instant. He streaked through the crowds of people, trotting along in his little navy Keds, until his toe caught a lip of the sidewalk and splat! He bellyflopped onto the sidewalk and his face came right down and bumped the pavement, too. He realized that he had fallen and began to cry, but a few Wheat Thins and some water cheered him right up. I spotted the busted top lip immediately, but at least it didn't bleed. It's more or less a blood blister at the bow of his top lip. The skinned knee, I didn't see until we were putting him in the car seat to go home. It's not that bad. It didn't even warrant a band-aid. Which probably disappointed William, now that I think about it.

As I told my mother on the phone this evening, "Well, William looks like a toddler." He sure does. Once upon a time, he smelled all sweet and was pink-cheeked and soft and round and cozy. If he was dirty, it was usually as the result of a diaper mishap or maybe some baby food dripped beneath his bib. Boy, those were the days. Well, he still smells sweet and still has the pink cheeks, but as often as not, he is also coated in a thin layer of playground grit and Goldfish cracker crumbs. With a few cuts and scrapes here and there to break things up. I've actually had to swab him down with a wet wipe a few times before putting him in his car seat. And remember the days when we gave him a nightly bath just to preserve the sanctity of the night-night ritual? Yep, not so much. Those days are looooong gone. The bathwater gets good and grimy now after we dunk him in it. The bath is a major necessity, not just a nice calm-you-down thing. I should probably soak all those bath toys in clorox. Or something stronger. Is there anything stronger than clorox?

Anyway, William's still sweet and soft, but he's also pretty exuberant. That's my new euphemism for "being a toddler."

The good news is that, regardless of the lip and knee, William enjoyed himself at the football game. He really paid more attention to Byron the Big Red Dog, MBA's mascot, than he did the football action, but that's okay. We had to stand down against the fence because the stands were so crowded. William actually got to get very close to Byron a few times when his handler walked by. That, plus more Wheat Thins, made William very happy. Then he started squirming to get down again. With the last bellyflop fresh in my head, I said, "Why don't we just go?" And we did. We brought him home, cleaned him up and slathered his bites in antibiotic cream. It'll be interesting to see what he looks like in the morning!

Oh yes, and remind me to post later about he's started moonwalking.

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