My little monkey's adventures

One little monkey jumping on the rocks

One fell down and broke her chin

Mamma got worked up and mamma said

No more monkey jumping all the time...

I guess it's easy to figure out who I'm talking about. As if the adventure in my life was not enough, looks like my daughter too inherited it from me. I've kind of lost track of the number of times Srishtii got hurt in the past 6 years with the latest injury happening just three days ago - she was running, fell down on some stones and badly injured herself: a deep gash on the chin, scratches on her tiny palms, hands and knees. Looking at my daughter's track record, this is nothing I guess. 

S's first injury happened when she was just 11 months old. My husband was out of the town on an official trip then. I came back from work at 8.20 P.M. on that fateful Wednesday night and found my daughter's lips swollen. My tearful mom told me that she fell off her pram earlier in the evening when she saw that my brother and his friend were going out. The guys were forced to cancel their movie night and rush her to the doctor. She had just started teething and cut her upper gums real deep, so the doctor wanted a surgeon to sew up the gash for quicker recovery. We were at the hospital till midnight as the doctor cleaned up the wound and had to put 3 stitches... :( The nightmarish experience is unforgettable to this day!

Guess my daughter didn't know how to stop since then... she went on embarking on one adventure after the other, each time the injury being different, severe, and sometimes scarier than the earlier one. Let me recollect and list out each of her adventures:

• Just a few months afterward, when I was mixing food for her, she tried reaching out for me from her swing, lost her balance, and almost fell down upside down - her legs got tangled in the swing while she was dangling ulta and crying for help. 
• Almost a year later, S fell off her rocking horse (it wasn't a wooden one but a rather sturdy plastic red, blue and yellow one) when she got up and tried to run to me. Yet another deep gash on her upper lip, right at a time when we ourselves were tensed up about my sister-in-law's post-surgical care as she was to be discharged the next morning and brought home. 
• Six months after this incident, S inserted a doll's eye in her right ear - the ENT specialist struggled for an hour to remove it carefully while she was on sedation. My husband was out of the town again! 
• Once she had swallowed a 10-paise coin and we had to wait eagerly for her to poop next day. Thankfully it came out that way without doctor's intervention :-). 
• On another occasion, we went shopping (with our niece in tow) at a store in White House building in Begumpet. Despite our repeated warnings, S kept running around, fell down and fractured her right hand :( . She was just about three years old then. 
• Last year, when I was away in the USA on an official trip, my husband and daughter visited his sister. While returning, as usual, my daughter was jumping and running on platform 2 of the Brahmapur Railway Station. In no time, she fell down and hurt her knees and hands real bad and was bawling away all the way to Secunderabad on board the Falaknuma Express. 
• Just last month, she was playing in her new school (where they have a huge ground and enough time for play), fell down yet again, and hurt her knee in the process. 

The list is actually endless and I've only listed out the major ones while ignoring the minor cuts and scratches. Sometimes I wonder if it is actually a good thing to keep falling frequently and getting hurt. At other times I feel it's okay if she falls and hurts herself just a little... she'll learn to face other major things in life with more confidence, and experience. 

Also, come to think of it, it's not possible for children not to run around and fall. Without getting hurt, nobody grows up. If you expect a child not to jump about and be quiet, it's like expecting too much... and you're probably not giving your child enough opportunity to be a child and explore things. I feel these injuries are just minor hurdles but if we stop them from falling, exploring and experiencing, then they'll end up being sissy-ish and cowardly. I might be talking like a cruel, hard-hearted mother, but I only don't want my sweetie pie to get hurt too much later in life!!! What say!