The bloodshed begins

Yesterday I was in my room changing my socks (of all things) when Liam fell. He had pulled himself up on the trunk in the hall, and then hit it on his way down. For the first few weeks that he spent pulling himself up, I followed him around like a shadow, ready to grab him and assist him down whenever he needed me; but he never did. He always did a good job of backing away from whatever he was holding onto as he lowered himself so that he didn't bump his chin in the process. I guess I have gotten used to this and taken it for granted, so I was around the corner when he hit his chin on the trunk yesterday. All I heard was the thud and then him starting to cry.

The crying stopped almost as soon as I picked him up - he just buried his head in my shoulder and snuggled in a bit, and before long he wanted down, so we went downstairs to play with some blocks. It was not until much later that I passed by a mirror in the house and saw a huge amount of blood on the shoulder of my sweater. I ran back to Liam and pried his mouth open (much to his chagrin) and began to count teeth and make sure he hadn't bitten his tongue right off. In the end, there was only a teeny tiny little spot on his gum that was bleeding. I'm thinking all the baby drool made it look like there was much more blood than there really was.

I know this is just the beginning - Liam is on the verge of cruising right now, and as soon as he starts taking a few steps, I'm sure that the hardwood floors will not be kind. He already has lots of little bruises around his knees - poor guy, the crawling must be hard on him. There are years of skinned knees and bumps and bruises (and daredevil injuries, if he's anything like Chad) ahead of us. I'd might as well get used to it now.