The Caring and Keeping of Children

Being a parent is rewarding and life-affirming and, well, hard. Sometimes I feel like the day is a success if I can say that nobody got hurt. That's not always easy. 

Both my kids are active. My son plays soccer and runs cross country, while my daughter dances a gazillion hours a week and also runs cross country. That can be a little challenging on the foot, ankle, knee areas. But we just hope for the best. 

My son went to a gym with a friend recently, fell while trying to parkour over stacked mats (I guess that's better than parkouring from building roof to building roof), and had to be carried out of the gym by some muscle guy. I believe he was profoundly mortified. He came home and reclined on the couch, knee swollen, with an ice pack for the rest of the day, watching european soccer matches. My daughter came home from dance that day, totally fine, then fell down the stairs and landed on her knee...the same knee as her brother. Now there were two children on the couches with swollen legs elevated. I was on icepack rotation duty and wondered what I had done wrong. How can we prevent our kids from getting hurt? The easy answer is don't let your kid pretend to parkour or fall down the steps. I will keep giving that a shot.

Luckily they recovered much more quickly than if I had been involved in a parkour accident or fallen down the stairs. I probably would have been in traction and dictating this post to a willing typist. So, yay for resilience!