Falling
File this one under “Scary Incidents with Children,†only this time, under the subheading, “Ultimately Funny.â€
It’s after dinner last night, and I’m sitting on the sofa talking to our guests, while the kids are playing, and Ann is sweeping the floor. Collin announces that he’s going to pee, and Ann asks me if I can go help him. I head back to our bathroom, where he has gone, and there he is standing, at the edge of the carpeting: “I’m peeing.â€
And there it is straight out of a slapstick routine. I pick him up under his arms, take one step onto the bathroom tile and [insert sound effect here] my feet slide dramatically into the air, while my torso comes thudding to the ground.
Of course, I also have Collin in my hands, and as I’m falling, I’m worried about keeping him above me and not under me. I was terrified immediately that I had fallen on him, breaking his little legs or worse.
He was fine, crying and scared, with a bump here and there, but fine.
I meanwhile am sprawled on the bathroom floor, laid out, mind you, in a trailing puddle of pee, and also scared. Ann rescued us from our heap of startled, soaked, selves, and got Collin cleaned up while I assessed my own damage (a couple of bruises, including a bit of a nasty one on my elbow), and then washed up myself.
I had a moment or two of almost cathartic crying—processing, I guess, the fear that had briefly passed through my head that I almost really hurt my son. But by the time I was out of the shower, he was laughing and playing again, and all was well.
In retrospect, I am inclined to describe it as comedy, but in the moment...well, I won’t belabor the point...I was scared.