Josh's Headwound

Josh managed to get his first big boo-boo.

Background. My son is 19 months old. He runs everywhere he goes. He doesn't look where he is going most of the time, and like most toddlers, runs into walls and trips over toys and dogs. Somehow he has never managed to whack his head on the brick hearth. I know it is something which is bound to happen, but hasn't yet. He takes off, picks up speed and then WHAM! runs into the wall because he turned around to look for Dad or a dog.

More background. We keep Josh out of the bedrooms and bathroom during the day. He has pretty much free reign of the rest of the house (within reason) but we don't leave those rooms open for him to roam around in. When we're in those rooms with him it's no big deal. When we want to leave those rooms we aren't willing to chase Josh to get him out. At first he thought we would be up for the "let's chase Josh" game, but he soon learned otherwise, I know, we're no fun. We've managed to train him so he will exit the room when we turn the lights out and tell him we're all done.

And now for the main event of our story. Josh was with Miguel in the back bedroom (his own room) and was busy getting into things. Miguel was done with whatever he was doing in there and had turned off the light and was calling Josh to get him to exit the room. Josh takes off at a run (as always) and we hear, THUNK and Josh starts wailing. This is highly unusual for Josh, as he is most often a thunk-*dazed-look*-pick-myself-up-and-try-again kid. Miguel immediately turns on the light and picks Josh up. Josh already has a blue line running down the middle of his forehead.

It turns out - Josh was running in the general direction of the door, tripped over a fan we had *not quite* scooted into the corner and hit his head on a corner right next to the doorway. Smack-dab in the center of his forehead, he has a vertical line.

We immediately start to try and ice it because it started to swell right away, but Josh was much more interested in playing with the baggie of ice than he was in putting it on his forehead (first clue he was fine). He also learned the word, "Ice" that night and often asks for it in his drinks now. We figured we needed to watch him for awhile to make sure he didn't have a concussion or anything and after awhile I felt like the worst mom in the world.

I mean, who else would crack up and say, "My kid looks like an alien from Star Trek" when her baby has a ginormous bruise/goose-egg on his head, and continuation bruising on the tip of his nose and middle of his upper lip?

He was so pitiful when he was crying. Then 5 minutes later he started acting normal and I was telling Miguel to get the camera so we could document our son's alien-look. Miguel was not having any of it. He agreed with the "worst mom - EVER" idea when I went and got the camera myself.

It's really too bad, the pictures don't do it the justice it deserves. The second picture is a bit blurry, but it shows another angle. He really was pitiful, and I felt bad for him. Obviously it hurt, but nothing permanent and he's all healed and on to other bruises....for now.