Busted Knees and Broken Faces

You know how policemen beat their wives with a sack of oranges because it doesn't leave any bruises? Huh? You mean that isn't common knowledge?

Anyway, despite having no plans to start beating Caitlyn, I realized that if I wanted to, I could totally get away with it. Uppercuts to the lip. I'm just saying. Toddlers man. No one questions it when she busts her face open.

I probably sound like the worst parent ever, but I just find it incredible how often this kid hurts herself. I regularly find bruises, cuts and scrapes and have no idea how they got there.

She's going through a cute little phase though. With all the rain we had last week, plus my natural clumsiness, it was inevitable that I would bust my ass. I'm kind of notorious for falling down all the time. My mom mocks me relentlessly about it. She was keeping a running tally of all the places I'd fallen back when I was a teenager. And she was pretty convinced that I had never been somewhere and not fallen there at least once.

So it was slippery. And I was in a rush. And I'm a fucking klutz and you should maybe just be 2 minutes late to a meeting as opposed to rushing when you are a klutz and it's raining outside. So I fell. Hard. And scraped up my knee pretty badly and fucked up my ankle.

Anyway. I got home and took a shower and was walking out of the bathroom in my towel when Caitlyn spotted my knee. She came over and pointed to it and I confirmed that "yes, oww, mommy got hurt". And then she did the cutest thing I've ever seen. She bent down and kissed my knee. Because she is the most adorable. The most adorable ever.

I'm still pretty scraped up and Caitlyn still comes over and gives my knee a kiss any time she sees it. It's the cute dysentary. She is oozing cute from all her orifices. I love it.

Then the other day she walked over to me. She was in her diaper, because clothes are for fucking suckers. I was cooking dinner or some shit and she was trying to get my attention (did I mention she says Mommy now? Finally. She seemed really committed to calling my Mom for a while, but the minute I got out of the hospital she started calling me Mommy). When I looked over I saw she was holding one leg up, looking at me expectantly. That's when I saw it. She had the tiniest little scab forming on her knee. Maybe a quarter of an inch. I wouldn't have even seen it if she didn't point it out to me. And then I knew just what she wanted. I was supposed to kiss her knee.

And I did. And then I asked if her knee felt better, if mommy's kiss had helped. To which she responded with a pained "Owwww". And then I kissed it many more times.

This isn't something I've ever shown her. I give her kisses if she gets hurt, but the idea that she should reciprocate the gesture was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen, and something she decided all on her own. My girl. She has a natural tendency to be nurturing and sweet, to care about other people.

I think as parents, we always question our choices. We always wonder if we are making the right decisions. We fear that we are raising brats or assholes (especially when they are just hitting their stride in terrible-twos type behavior). And so it's really nice to have a moment like that, where you realize that your kid really is as awesome as you think she is.