Put out your hands, Things! Don't land on your faces!

'Mum, I was running.... Running so fast,I couldn't stop. I was telling myself to stop. I said; 'stop thing 1, stop!'.... But I just didn't listen to myself .... See, it's not only you I don't listen too!'

Thing 1, age 5


In the space of three months, all three Things have managed to cause themselves damage to their faces. Thing 1 was the first to take a tumble, it goes a little something like this;

We had dropped off Thing 1 at school perfectly fine, we'd had a variety of errands to run in the morning and then we had a trip to the supermarket planned for the afternoon. We were running a little later than planned and just as we left the house, school calling flashed up on my mobile screen. I cannot describe the pool of dread that forms in my stomach between seeing that number on my screen and me answering. Usually it's nothing; informing me that a planned after-school club has been cancelled or that school is closing early. But not this time. Thing 1 had had a small accident, he'd ran into a wall and stopped himself with the side of his head ... Notably his left ear. Things' dad went in to survey the damage, deemed the wee soldier fit to return to his schooling, and we continued with our planned tasks....
When I picked him up at the end of the school day I was greeted by a big purple swollen and bruised ear, with a head attached to it. Asking him what he'd done gained me the above quoted reply, apparently he was being a superhero.

The next Thing to show their face to the floor was baby Thing 3.
It was one of the first Wednesdays that both Things 1 & 2 would be spending all day in school and we had planned to take Thing 3 out for her first trip out alone without the other two. We had planned to go into Hebden Bridge. Have some lunch, browse the shops. I had been looking forward to it for weeks! We arrived at our destination, waited a little while for a parking spot, wandered to the cash machine and then decided to begin the morning with a nice cup of tea in a nice little cafe. This nice little cafe had a stone floor, and no sooner had I popped the tray of drinks onto the table than Thing 3 emitted a wail of epic proportions. She'd fallen flat onto her face on the stone floor. She cried and wailed, then wailed and cried. Blood poured from her nose. I flapped my arms about pathetically and squeaked out something incoherent about needing to get to a hospital. Things' dad told me to stop flapping and that it was just her nose. Nose swelled up to epic proportions and more blood and further crying and the executive decision was taken to take her to A&E.
we checked where the nearest one was located. It would take us a fair trip in the opposite direction of home and having experienced A&E waiting times before we were worried that we wouldn't be back in time to collect Things 1 & 2 from school. We couldn't ask for someone else to collect them if we did get delayed as we were also picking up their friends, middle one and big one. We headed back toward home and our local A&E. Thing 3 cried the entire journey, inconsolable. I cried. The journey seemed to take forever.

We arrived at A&E, Things' dad let us out of the car an he went to find a parking space. I checked Thing 3 in at the desk and then guess what she did? That wailing Thing 3 stopped wailing. She giggled, then wriggled to be put down. I put her down. She did a little dance and started running round. as we'd already checked in we had to wait to be seen, growing more and more embarrassed by the second at being there, as Thing 3 climbed on chairs and swung on chair legs, laughing and smiling.
When we finally got called through, a consultant who looked and sounded like Paul O'Grady came over, and asked a couple of questions in heavily cigarette fragranced breaths, told us she was fine and sent us on our way. I'm still asking myself if he was indeed a consultant, or someone who'd awoke that morning, thought to himself 'today I'm going to be a consultant', and sneaked on shift at our local A&E department.

Today, was Thing 2's turn. She happily skipped out of school, over the pram wheel and landed on the floor with her chin. Blood and a crying Thing 2 really makes the walk home from school feel like a real achievement; if I can deal with that, then I can deal with anything!

Incidentally, Thing 1 isn't taking any more chances with illness and injury. After informing him that his body fights off viruses and bugs, he proceeded to throw moves all the way to school that would've brought a tear of pride to the eyes of even the most hardened ninja. His body was fighting any bugs and viruses that had sneakily got inside him ...... Apparently.