Unnecessary Roughness

For the first year of Elijah’s life, I treated him like a Faberge Egg. Even though our nurses at the hospital tossed him around like a rag doll, I was convinced if I was too rough with him I’d pop one of his arms off like a cupie doll.

But now that he’s mobile, he can barely make it across the living room without bashing into something. Usually me. But every once and a while he will take a serious tumble that makes me shout, “Nooo! Faberge Baby!”

Yesterday, we visited some of Diana’s friends from Berkeley who moved to Evanston. Aside from having a house that makes ours look like pile of wet matchsticks, they had two cute boys who book-ended Eli in age and an endless array of cool toys and balls and plastic things without sharp edges. So Eli did as always does when he finds himself among people of his own height: he went nuts.

He spent roughly three hours running at top speed throughout the Berkeley friends house screaming his head off. Luckily, the Berkeley boys were also well versed in the screaming arts.

As we were having a post dinner glass of wine and attempting to have an adult conversation over the delighted howls, I watched as Eli ran clockwise around a couch and Jonah, the eldest boy ran counterclockwise. Completely unable to stop the impending crash, my brain began to assume the voice of an NFL sportscaster.

“4th and two. This is a do or die moment for team Hamann. Clock is running down. Here’s the snap. Hamann hands off to Hamann. Hamann cuts to the outside…he has daylight…15…10…5…Ohhhh! He gets tattooed by Jonah!”

Eli bounced off the boy and flew backwards. Luckily, his face broke his fall. As he lay there, I began collecting our things and Diana rushed over to our clump of baby. Nothing ends a night faster than a hysterical child.

Jonah attempted to give Eli a pile of colorful magnets as a get-well gift. But Eli was too hurt and angry to accept. But we were able to calm him down with a fist full of raspberries.

But by the time we got home Eli had forgotten all about his face plant. And I realized I have to teach him the fine art of Juking.

And when he's older I'll have to teach him about using two analogies in one paragraph (see: first paragraph).