Caught on the Stairs

All of my kids have fallen down the stairs. Luckily, they weren’t too bad in general. The kid who got it the worse was my 5 year old son C when he was a toddler. He always wanted to go up and down the stairs and definitely took a tumble down a few steps (and got a few bruises). Life lessons. My 1 year old son was mainly unscathed and only fell down a step or two before his fateful experience in the garage.

I was taking C and his 7 year old sister E to acrobatics. My wife and her parents were over, so I thought they were watching L. Little did I know, L wanted to come along outside and I saw him open the mudroom door. He was at the top of the stairs in the garage with a big smile on his face because he saw us getting into the car in the garage. I was urging L to be careful because the mudroom door swings shut when it is open. He wasn’t holding it open, so I didn’t want it to smack him on the back. I was walking quickly to the stairs (and not running so I didn’t startle L) when the door smacked him in the back.

L went flying down the stairs and the quick walking turned into running. As he was tumbling down halfway down the stairs, I caught him to stop him from falling further. He was traumatized and crying so loudly. Luckily, it didn’t look like he was hurt badly and he only fell down a half dozen of the steps. Thank goodness he didn’t fall all the way to the bottom and my wife came running to calm him down. I need to learn the lesson that when your 1 year old is able to open doors, anything is possible. Hopefully this is the time I fully learn that lesson after my third time around the block!