New Kid On The Blog

It was a Saturday morning. SM was still asleep. As usual, I left Dominic in the hall to play by himself while I prepared breakfast in the kitchen. The moment I heard Dominic cried, I knew something was wrong. It wasn't the mummy-I-want-you-don't-leave-me-alone cry. Instead it was rather like the I-am-in-terrible-pain kinda cry. I rushed into the hall and saw Dominic sitting in front of the TV, screaming. I quickly picked him up and checked him out. I guessed he must have knocked his head or legs or hands on the cabinet (as he sometimes did anyway, he's a rather clumsy boy). And then when I looked into his face, I saw to my horror blood dripping from his mouth. After some detective work, I later found out that he had slipped and knocked his upper front teeth on the TV cabinet - there was a toothmark on the cabinet.

Anyway, I cleaned him up with a wet handkerchief and he was laughing and eating toast a few minutes later. His tooth was fine and there was no wound or anything. It was just a gum bleed.

And then there was this question. What would an elderly like SM's mum say to the incident? Most probably I would be blamed for not keeping an eye on Dominic. I don't know ... after thinking about it for a little while, the final decision was still to let Dominic play on his own while I run chores around the house instead of keeping him by my side all the time. I would still like him to be independent, to roam freely and explore this world on his own. The room will have furnitures. That's just the way it is. Needless to say, truly hazardous areas such as the power sockets are blocked by obstacles purposely created to keep Dominic from accessing them. The door is kept close to keep him from going near the stairs. Other than that, there will still be tables and chairs and cabinets - like any other ordinary hall would - and Dominic would just have to learn to keep himself out of harm. He would have to remember to lower himself to keep from knocking his head while crawling under the table. And he would have to learn to be careful while cruising around the room.

I guess Dominic had learnt his lesson since he hadn't gone near the TV for the past 2 days. And he had learnt many other lessons too. He'd never knocked his head under the table like SM's mum said he would. He was always careful and held on to furnitures tightly. He took slow steps while playing with his push-along toy and quickly bent his knees everytime the toy moved too fast. He grabbed me tightly when he thought that he was going to fall. Sometimes accidents do happen and as long as they are nothing too serious I am fine by them.