Learning The Hard Way

That post I wrote last week about Luke's first day of school. The final sentence about how he's going to have a lot of skinned knees and chins in his future. Well to be honest I just got done writing that. I didn't get the chance to write about Luke's first day until now. What prompted me to get done with that post is to get writing on this one. After Mom picked Luke up from school today she sent me the picture below. Luke had his first skinned chin.

By the picture it looks kind of gruesome and talking to Mom tonight it is. Whenever it happened at school the trauma must have passed because he was all smiles by the time Mom picked him up. You would figure he'd learn his lesson and not try and run faster than his feet would allow. You would be wrong. While waiting for the bus today Luke wouldn't sit still or slow down. Between running outside and in the house I've come to the conclusion that Luke has two speeds, run and stop. With stop only occurring when he's asleep. All that energy he is releasing is tiring us out.

When I arrived home from work tonight Mom handed me Luke's log book and opened it to today. The log book is a pretty neat idea. The teacher writes notes in it every day explaining what happened that day in class, what books they read, and any other pertinent information. I think it's a pretty neat idea. Stapled to the log for today is the incident report for Luke's injury. It reads as follows. "Your child, Luke, received First Aid today for a cut / bruise on this chin & lip. It happened on our walk / run on the track. Two friends bumped into each other and fell." The Nurse's comments are what really sells the report. "We checked inside Luke's mouth as best we could. He didn't cry or fuss - just got up and kept running."

No time for crying when it's play time. Half of me is proud of the little guy. The other half wishes he'd learn a little self preservation. Mom and I are wondering how many of these injury reports we are going to have stapled by to his log book by the end of the year. I don't think it's going to stop at one.

Fearless

Luke's physical abilities really seem to be taking off.  Standing, walking, running, and climbing are all old hat to him.  To further push his physical abilities he likes to mix activities.  The two he likes to mix most are climbing and standing.  In our living room he will climb up on our ottoman and then proceeds to stand up.  Our ottoman isn't a stable structure and Luke works very hard to keep his balance.  On only a few occasions has he tumbled off usually between the ottoman and sliding glass door getting himself stuck.  Of course we tell him to stop standing on the ottoman or the couch but the only way he learns is through trial an error.

Yesterday he was climbing on Alyce's bench and somehow failed at climbing up it or possibly fell off.  When Mom went to check on him and the commotion she was greeted by a trickle of blood coming out of Luke's nose.  His first bloody nose.

I may give him some trouble about whining for food but one thing he doesn't cry about is getting hurt.  If he falls or bangs his head on something he'll take a look at us, rub the stop that's injured, and continue on as if nothing has happened.  Luke is a boy that isn't afraid to take chances.  I pray that some self preservation is developed along side fearlessness.