Showing You All How It's NOT Done

Last weekend M. bought the boys a new toy for ages 6 months and up. It has all kinds of do-dads and fun things on it. It rattles, things spin and it is wonderfully colorful. I couldn't wait to get it out of the box and show it to Nate and Seth – although getting toys free of their boxes these days seems to require a degree in advanced engineering, so it took awhile.

At last I had it ready to go and was just in the process of showing it to the babies when Seth snatched it out of my hand and promptly clobbered himself. : (

And you know that thing babies do when they hurt themselves and they open their mouth to cry but no sound comes out? Well, he did that.

Thank goodness some cuddles and kisses saved the day and he was happy and wanting to play again in less than 3 minutes. I thought for sure he'd given himself a good shiner since you can see a bit of a bruise under his eye in this pic: 

But by morning there was no bruise, just a bit of a red mark where his eyelid got scraped.

*whew*

Or so I thought. The next evening when I went to feed them their bedtime meal, I saw this: 

At first I thought it was a shadow/trick of the light since it was not very bright outside at this point, but no... it's a shiner. I have no idea if it was from the night before since the bruise appeared to be gone by morning, and it doesn't really make sense that it would it suddenly reappear. A new bruise from something else then? I have no idea, but despite all appearances, Seth is a very active baby and it's entirely possible this was a fresher injury.

Ugh.

But wait – it gets worse, because not 2 days later, there was an equally impressive bruise under his other eye.

Oh, Seth.

I thought about taking a picture of that one as well because that would have completed the trifecta of injuries, but his shirt was terribly dirty at the time (we'd just had our peas and bananas and their new bibs can only hold back so much). In the end, I decided against it. 3 injuries in one week, 2 bruised eyes and a dirty shirt?

Too much.

I might as well call CPS myself. *sigh*

What makes this all so confounding is that for the most part, all of their toys are soft, plushy things. And Seth wasn't around any of the ones that aren't when the last 2 injuries happened. And also, they are rarely unattended and if they are it's only for a few minutes while they seem happy and are playing so their mommy can get a bathroom break or grab a quick bite. There wasn't any crying either (other than the original injury) and although the boys do get in a few kicks to the face here and there when they are playing together, no one was in a position to do that when I left the room or when I returned.

So... confusing, confounding and oh, look – there's that mommy guilt again.

Seth, please stop hurting yourself however you are managing it, my son. It makes your mommy worry and I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

- L.