Present Presents Presently!

Both her and the Y-Bike are smiling!

Much as we had Second Thanksgiving so that we could have friends and family over for a large meal and good times, Grammy Pammy had Second Hanukkah and had us over for a great dinner and a bit of a present exchange.

One of the presents that Lois received was Pewi Ybike, a cool walking-toy that she can either push around (which helps her with her stability) or sit on and push herself around with her feet.

She loves it.

I'm waiting for her to use it to surf, honestly.

Right after I put it all together (which only took me an hour longer than the instructions say it should have, during which time I only swore five or twenty times) she started pulling it around the house. It wasn't until after I put her on it that she really started loving it, getting on it, scooting around for five or six feet, and then getting off to pull it for a while. Repeat ad infinity.

Sure, she's fallen off it a few times and cries for a second but when I ask her if the floor is okay she stops crying and immediately looks at the floor to check. She even patted it once where she landed on it.

Seriously, she's adorable like that.

I see a lot of parents at the baby gym who rush over when their child takes a (small) tumble, swooping in, picking them up, and hugging them close as they cry and I'm not saying they're doing it wrong but I don't know if I could do that every single time. Lois falls. She takes tumbles. She even goes boom sometimes.

And that's okay! I used to have a heart-attack when it happened, worried she had seriously hurt herself, even if the fall was just onto her own butt from a standing position. If I reacted to every fall as these parents do I'd shorten my OWN life!

Let's pretend she wasn't actively falling as I snapped this picture.

For now, I'll ask her if the floor that she landed on, the wall that she hit on her way down, and the myriad other things she bumps into are okay. If she doesn't check them and stop crying I'll know she needs a little more love.

Maybe it's the right thing to do, maybe it's not. Parenting is kind of a crap-shoot that way, isn't it? Maybe there's a better way to handle falls that I haven't heard of.

In the meantime, she'll be patting the floor better while daddy surreptitiously looks her over for any cuts, bruises, or bloody noses. No blood, no worries. Right?

Right?