I'll Take That Tiara in Platinum, Please

So here's my bid for Mother of the Year.

Yesterday, Daughter was playing hide-and-seek in the folds of my long red bathrobe. It was funny and cute. Until she lost her balance trying to pop out and say "BOO!" and fell face first onto the tile floor. She burst into tears, and I gathered her up and held her tight, feeling particularly guilty because about two weeks ago, she and her brother were playing some game that resulted in her face planting on the very same tile and chipping one of her front teeth. The teeth are still sensitive, and I was sure she was hurting. When the sobs finally quieted enough for her to look up from where she'd buried her head in my shoulder, I realized that she and I were covered in blood. Serious bloody nose. Poor baby.

We got her cleaned up, and iced down, and dosed with ibuprofen, and snuggled up in Daddy's lap. Then guilt-ridden mama, who'd thought the peek-a-boo game was really cute (it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt), went to make waffles for a cheer-up breakfast.

Son dashed past me into the dining room as I headed towards the cabinet. I took down a big glass mixing bowl, turned around to put it on the counter, and CRACK! managed to bash poor Son in the face with the bowl. Apparently, he'd made the circuit of the house, and was sneaking up behind me. The lip of the bowl had smashed into the upper edge of his cheekbone -- the part that forms the eye socket -- which was already swelling, not to mention cut by the sheer force of the blow. He looked like a boxer who'd take a left hook to the eye.

Enter more ice. More ibuprofen. Lots more tears. More sitting on Daddy's lap. Frantic searches for butterfly bandages in very tiny sizes. HUUUUGE piles of guilt for mama.

I snuggled him, and read to him, as he hiccuped quietly and held a bag of frozen cranberries to his face. "You know, ice cream would probably make it feel a lot better," he said, looking into my face with a sly smile. I had to laugh.

In the end, he doesn't seem to be getting a black eye, and the cut stopped oozing blood, and her nose is still perky and cute, and they are both perfectly cheerful.

And, really, I think any mother who can inadvertantly cause serious facial bleeding to both her children in separate incidents less than ten minutes apart deserves some kind of award for accomplishments of the day, don't you? At least, as long as she is smart enough to fix things by serving waffles and ice cream for breakfast afterwards.