Free Falling

Well electronical friends, it seems like these gaps are becoming more and more common, yes? And yet, things are happening. This past weekend was birthday weekend, with my little brother coming down from Petaluma to the family get together/birthday party for him. My dad made ribs and potato and macaroni salad, and it was a great food day. It's always nice to have the family get together, and my aunt and uncle came down from Lower Lake and I got my uncle the dimensions for the area of my upcoming garden and he let me know that he has two kinds of squash, zuchinni, bell peppers, beans, three types of tomatoes and onions ready to come down in a couple weeks. So that means that me and the fam will make a pilgrimage up there to get the plants and set up with the materials that I'll need for irrigation and weed control. It also means that I should probably start building that raised planter. Soon.

Sunday was spent over at a friends house, whose daughter was celebrating her 8th birthday. Our kids are pretty close in age, so they enjoy playing with each other. They also have a play structure deal, like the ones from Costco. The kids love playing on that thing, there's swings, and a slide and a couple ladders. I'm not sure exactly what happened, as I was inside talking to people, and my wife was talking to someone else outside so she didn't see it right away, either. But I poked my head out the door just in time to see my little 3 year old girl helicopter spin off the top of the ladder and fall face first onto the safety mat seven feet below. She landed in a belly-flop manner and you could definately hear the thud. It seemed to happen in slow motion, and Thank God she landed on the mat and not another foot away where the cement patio was. I picked her up and she was trying to cry, but having a hard time, as the wind was knocked out of her. Once she caught her breath back, she cried for a while, and my wife took her from me, because I guess I wasn't doing a good enough job soothing her. I found them a few minutes later in the bathroom, with my wife cleaning my daughters face off. My son was pretty freaked out about this, as he suddenly became very shy and didn't want to leave my side.

Soon after this episode it was time for the kids to decorate their cupcakes, and she did this with her big brother and all was fine. She ate her hot dog, and about 15 minutes later was asking if she could go play on the playground again. So we let her, just disallowing her up the ladder she fell off of. So either the memory was gone, or she just didn't care. My kids are pretty tough. I say that, because the only other explanation is that they don't learn. And I'm pretty sure they learn.