becoming more mobile....

There's my happy girl....eating a bagel....

In the Emergency Room at Children's Hospital Boston.  Which is a nice way of saying that we learned (the hard way) that she can now climb a flight of stairs.

We usually go out to dinner on Saturday nights.  We have had many people say that we're brave for doing so (to which I usually say: its either this or they trash the house).  Around 5:30 on Saturday, I was getting ready to pack the diaper bag and went upstairs to go to the bathroom.  Zev, finding the bathroom habits of other people fascinating, followed me upstairs.  I didn't close the lower gate on the stairs because..well, the thought didn't even enter my head.  Jason was on the computer doing some IT assistance for a friend remotely.  While in the bathroom, I hear:  bang bang bang, CRASH, SCREAM, 'OH MY GOD', WAAIIILLLL...

I run downstairs and find Meorah on the floor and Jason already scooping her up.  Tzelia is kneeling next to her, and I assume Zev was somewhere behind me.  Meorah is screaming and her ear is bleeding.  Tzelia then starts to cry (out of sympathy?), and I pick her up.

Meorah (who is a mommy's girl) had tried to follow me upstairs and actually made it about 3/4 of the way.  At that point, she somehow tumbled all the way back down, heels over head, and hit the bottom of the stairs.  It looked like her ear was perferated, so Jason wanted to bring her to the Emergency Room ("Why you?"  "It makes more sense for me to do it".  "Why?"  "Because I'm the health care professional"), so he left with Meorah, leaving me with Tzelia and Zev.

Dinner plans abandoned.

They ended up staying in the Emergency Room for four hours for observation.  Meorah was fine (her ear was just scratched badly, but was bleeding a lot), but they wanted to watch her and make sure she was really ok.  That picture is her enjoying a bagel from Au Bon Pain, which luckily was still open.

Two lessons learned:  First, we now have to close the gate on the stairs.

Second, DAMN having only two kids in the house is a piece of cake!  I don't want to hear anyone who only has two children complain to me again.  I fed both Tzelia and Zev, we played awhile ("Don't hit your sister!  Daddy took the minivan so I can't take you to the hospital!"), and both kids were in bed by 8pm.  Nice and easy.

I did feel badly for Tzelia.  She was much quieter than usual...no sister to torment (yes, she is the bully of the two).  I think she missed her other half....  Its so nice to see them play together, and this was the first time they spent much time apart.  It was only a few hours, but they are ALWAYS together.  Jason told me later he actually enjoyed just being out with Meorah and spending 1-1 time with her.  We'll have to make it a habit to take them out individually, as hard as that may be.

And one final (although funny/awful) thought:  if I had to pick a child to fall down the stairs, I would pick Meorah.  She's the happiest of the three (see picture again).  I told Jason later:  We should be glad it wasn't Tzelia...the drama queen would never let us forget it.  She stubs her finger and she'll wail for an hour.  She'd still be bitching about falling down the stairs at her 13th birthday party....