Ian Fell Off The Changing Table

Wham! 28 pounds of baby boy was on the floor. Then silence, as Ian was immersed in those few seconds between what happened and crying.

Where was I? Across the room, of course, with my back turned, right where I should have been. Duh. Where do you think I was? I had made it a habit to leave him on the changing table, just for 3 or 4 seconds, while I zipped across his room (about ten feet) to his dresser and pulled out a pair of pants for him, or a shirt. I didn't see him fall--I heard the wham and ran over and scooped him up while he howled and howled and I hope somewhere in his mind cursed his mother for being such an idiot.

"It was all my fault, Ian," I said, sitting with him in one of the ancient chairs in our living room. I bent his arms and legs and wiggled his wrists and checked his head, his mouth. Nothing. Not a scratch except for that enormous fear and shock and discovery of gravity that kept him howling for minutes. He could have broken a bone, split his head open. Split his lip and needed stiches and Novocaine injections and antibiotics and then therapy. He'll probably still need therapy. My god.

"I'm so sorry," I told him, his head on my shoulder, his cries moving into low whines. "It was all my fault, and it will never happen again. Never, ever, ever."

He'd been a little fussy when I made my usual move across the room to fetch his clothes, refusing to let me take off his shirt or something. So when I went to his dresser, I was a little annoyed with him. This didn't make me feel any better.

I can't believe how easy it is for something to happen to your child. I realize this realization is coming a little late, since Ian is almost two, but it's shocking how quickly they can hurt themselves and how clearly it is the parent's fault when they do. Yesterday he was gripping the oven door handle and the refrigerator door handle at the same time, a practice neither myself nor the husband have objected to. And why would we? The oven wasn't on, there is no potential for electric shock from either source. Ian is just exploring the kitchen. So we let him. How were we to know that he might want to hang on the oven door, or perhaps use the oven handle to climb the stove? What are we, parents? Human beings? Stupid? Attributing adult levels of judgment to our toddler? Fortunately, as soon as he made the monkey move and started to pull open the oven door, I grabbed him and made him cry for telling him no. So he was still scratch-free but for the wound to his desire.