Warm lump of motherly love

Turns out there is no good way to photograph an injury on your rear end that you intend to post on the internet. There is no angle, no camera setting, that does not immediately say HEINIE!

So I’ll have to tell you, instead, with my powerful words of … telling stuff.

I can’t sleep right now, because I have a throbbing, heart-shaped bruise on my left hip. I’ve been thinking of it as my heart-shaped bruise of love, because it’s an injury I sustained while mucking around on the rocks in the creek at Double Rock Park. And I was mucking around on the rocks in the creek at Double Rock Park because that is what Owen loves dearly to do, and I dearly love him, so I do what I can to see that squinty, happy smile he does.

You may be able to tell, from my hockey-player’s toothless grin, that I am less graceful than most people. I have a strong tendency to meet the ground with body parts other than my feet. Between the moment I lose my balance and the moment I hit the earth, my body also forgets how to brace itself for impact. So I usually land pretty hard. Today I was following my little explorer up the banks of the creek when I stepped on a slime-covered rock and landed on my endside in three inches of orange-ish, germy, foamy water, watching my right Birkenstock sail downstream and hoping I caught it before it hit the pool with the dead worm in it (having already reconnoitered the area, I knew what horrors lay below). In that regard, at least, luck was in my corner. Sandal was retrieved in short order; with wet shorts, though, dignity was much harder to reclaim.

But later this evening, as I stared, fascinated, over my shoulder at my tangible proof of maternal sacrifice, I understood that river-smelly sandals and an alarmingly hot-to-the-touch butt bruise are a small price to pay for the mental photograph I captured today. My little brave son, standing with his chest thrust out on a smooth rock precipice 15 feet above me, dappled by leaf shade, shading his eyes against the glare and surveying his conquered territory. Seeing him as I knew he wanted to be seen — not as a preschooler in galoshes, but as a strong, clever swashbuckler, able to leap from rock to rock, outsmart his enemies and protect his loved ones from danger.

He loves the river, and I love him, therefore I love the river. Even when it bites me in the ass.

July 2, 2008 | Filed Under motherhood, preschooler, sappy crap

Comments

5 Responses to “Warm lump of motherly love”

Christina on July 3rd, 2008 7:44 pm

I seriously need a tissue! I think you’re past the writer’s block, my friend. And I seriously want to be adopted into your family, even just for a weekend.
Suebob on July 3rd, 2008 8:50 pm

Aw…what a good, proud mama. Snif!

I am with you on the superklutzness. I once tripped and fell with my fist balled up underneath me, so I not only fell on my face, but I punched myself HARD in the ribs while doing so. Niiiiice.
mary alice on July 4th, 2008 5:55 am

posts like today reiterate to me why you are such a phenomenal writer! fantastic. sorry about your fall, but huzzah to big-man owen.

also, i got a rollerskate wheel to the bum last year and wanted SO badly to post a photo of the horrific bruise it caused, but there was no way to do so without, well, straight up putting my ass on the internet. so i hear you.
supa on July 5th, 2008 11:59 am

oh man.

you guys are the best.
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