Face to Exercise Bike

I have always warned my kids about playing near exercise equipment. We have some weights and a rack outside in the garage. We also have an exercise bike indoors. Those things would hurt to fall into, but it was inevitable that something were to happen…because kids.

One night a few weeks ago, my 7 year old daughter E and 5 year old son C were playing soccer in the house. They were having fun while my wife and I were finishing dinner. The next thing I hear, it was a scream and I knew something happened. E and C both came into the kitchen.

It turns out, their soccer ball went behind the exercise bike and instead of asking for help because of my rules around exercise equipment, they decided to keep playing. E and C were both trying to get the ball and C happened to be the one to bust his face on the bike. I was not happy about how it all happened, but we needed to deal with his face. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been and I hope they learned a valuable lesson that night.

C then had a string of things happen from that point on. He was playing soccer on the concrete at school and somehow tripped really bad. His head slammed into the concrete really hard and he had to go to the nurse. He came home with a huge lump on his head. Then he ended up sick for most of the week. It was not the best run for C.

Sometimes as parents, you can’t predict these things nor prevent things from happening. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a parent and to let things go. Kids will do things and rules only handle so much. Nagging doesn’t work either and everyone needs to learn some of the lessons the hard way. It’s tough watching my kids go through a string of things all at the same time, but tough times make tough people (or so I like to think)!