Humpty Dumpty had a a great fall

When we were trying to pick a Chinese name for Muffin, I fixated on the gift of speed for him. (迅)For the twins, we chose the gift of wisdom of wisdom (智慧). People laughed and said that the Muffin would be Speedy Gonzalez and we would have a problem keeping up with him. My retort was that my wise older offspring would be able to keep him in check. I had visions of Muffin being like Dash from the Incredibles.

Evidently, naming a child with particular gifts in mind is a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. While I am uncertain how wise the twins actually are, Muffin does live up to his swift and speedy name.

Yesterday, he showed that being swift and speedy had its downfalls. A big one at that.

The older generation constantly nag us about keeping an eagle's eye on the children saying that they needed to be supervised 24-7. Packrat and I are a bit more relaxed on that count. Our parenting mentality has always been that children need the space to experience knocks and falls (of course, this is within safety and reason and far away from any stairs) and they really shouldn't be smothered by our presence. So we often let them be, thundering up and down the house, toddling off without us hot on their heels. The problem is that because we are not right behind them and are not carrying them all the time, they will inadvertently end up with knocks, bumps and bruises. Evan spent his whole year after he learnt how to walk with a perpetual bump on his forehead that we eventually named his "unicorn bud".

Muffin was set down for a minute while our helper turned to take out his clothes from the cupboard. In that 20 seconds, he'd run circles round our helper, tripped and fallen, hitting the wooden bed frame that was in his vicinity.

Of course, there was some wailing but it didn't seem to have caused any trauma or serious pain. So, we iced it and upon Muffin's great grandfather's orders, boiled an egg and rubbed it on his swelling eye. It looks worse than it is and I am sure I will get a lot of clucking about it during the New Year.

























I got phonecalls after I posted his photograph with Plentyfish lamenting that even people in his Mixed Martial Arts class didn't get bruises the way Muffin's bruise was beginning to look. Now, how does that make a contrite Mommy feel better?

He's fine though. He's taken off running around again although we watch a little bit more carefully now because while I named him swift and speedy, I forgot to add in invincible.



Technorati Tags: naming children, toddler accidents