I can't believe how often I hear myself saying that phrase. Alli's just over 16 months old and she's already giving me panic attacks. All she does is run around anymore, just plain walking is long gone. Anytime she has to get somewhere that is more than a few steps away, she's full speed ahead.
Followers might recall a section of this post about Alli's last accident involving her speed and a certain law of physics called gravity. She was running along the sidewalk at school when she tripped, fell and put her top teeth through her bottom lip. Everything has healed up nicely (thank goodness) since then, but it has become more apparent to Mommy B and I that our little girl has embraced the daredevil lifestyle. And it's not just her obsession with speed (or running), it's anything and everything that can hurt and/or possibly injure her.
Her new favorite thing to do is play on the couch. And when I say "play", I mean use the couch as her personal jungle gym/bounce castle. She's about an inch or two short of climbing up on the couch herself, so we humor her and pull her up to join us. She then proceeds to run the length of the couch and nose-dive into the pillows. That part I'm OK with... its the fact that sometimes she overshoots the pillows and swan-dives off the end of the couch. Other times she undershoots the pillows and barrel-rolls off the side of the couch. The only saving grace for all this is that Dad-E is there to cushion her fall before she puts her teeth into her nasal cavity.
The other night she decided to back herself off our bed as we were getting her ready for bedtime. This resulted in her back flipping off the side of our bed and landing head over heels onto the carpet. I was in the bathroom at the time while Mommy B got her ready, and I was making my way into the room as I saw her backing off the edge of the bed. I made a diving leap to try and cradle her fall, but I came up short of catching her - which made me feel wonderful for the rest of the evening. She was OK (thank goodness, again) and I think the fall scared her more than hurt her. After a few minutes of tears and hugs with Dad-E and Pooh Bear, she was back to her normal self. But you're starting to get my point.
Each time Mommy B or I see Alli getting close to a given precipice, we can't help but utter the most appropriate phrase, "Be careful, Alli." We realize that she doesn't completely understand us yet, but we're hoping that the repetition will sink in soon enough. Plus, being the uber-smart, college-educated people that we are, we figured that she's never going to learn that walking full speed off the edge of something tall will end up hurting her if I'm always there to catch her. But the way she walks the plank sometimes makes me wonder if she has a death wish.
Mommy B and I have resorted to joking with each other each time Alli does something that makes us cringe because of the impending doom and one of us says "Careful... CAREFUL!" It may not be doing a lot of good at the moment, but hopefully she'll begin catching on. Otherwise I'm just going to have to mentally prepare myself for multiple trips to the ER for stitches.
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