Bouncing off cement and other injuries

So Carrin said "there's a story in there somewhere" about my face bouncing off the cement from this post. Well, there is, unfortunately. It actually wasn't cement, it was asphalt. Doesn't that make it sound better?


Anyway, I was 5 or 6 and my brothers were in charge of me. I'm the baby of the family so by this time, Mom was back working.


We decided to ride our bikes to a bike shop a couple of miles away. This was 'back when' you could do stuff like this with out fear of being kidnapped. My brother 6 years older than me (PA), rode his skate board and the brother 4 years older than me (Toph) and I, rode our bikes. I have 4 older brothers and no sisters by the way.


We knew the road coming up had a long, steep hill so PA went another way. The hill was fun on a bike but not so much on a skate board. It was only about 2 blocks from the bike shop.


So, Toph and I proceed down the hill and are flying down it, loving every minute. I get the great idea to start wiggling my handle bars. Not so smart. Then, I couldn't stop them and flew over the handle bars, landing (and probably bouncing) face first in the street at the bottom of the hill. Needless to say, I was messed up like a soup sandwich.


Luckily, (like there is something lucky about this) I landed right in front of the house that family friends lived in. Toph got their help and they took me in and called my Mom. I remember standing there, just looking in the mirror at myself (probably in shock) with no thoughts going threw my mind. PA finally showed up after realizing we should have been to the bike shop before him and was a tad embarrassed because he had a major crush on the girl that lived there.


My arms were really scraped up (I still have scars) but nothing was broken. My face, on the other hand, was not in real good shape. I don't remember if there were any other injuries because my face was so bad. I think my legs were all scraped up too. They had to of been.


All my front teeth were loose (but didn't break or loose any) and my gums literally looked like hamburger meat. I can't imagine what people thought when they saw me.


Mom took me to the doc and he said to take me to the dentist. Then the dentist told her to take me to the doc first. Go figure. I don't remember what happened after that but I know I healed.


I never rode down that hill again. I did go down hills on my bike after that but was always scared and held my arms as straight as possible so there was absolutely no wiggling going on.

Any time I am in Ft. Worth and drive past that bike shop (it's still there), I think of that day. Great memories!

Writing this made me think of all the big injuries I had growing up. The tip of an iron fell on my eye at 2 (that's my first memory and I still have a scar), I got run over by a kid on a bike (at 3), Mom says I was 5 when I flipped over my bike, 7 was the car wreck where I almost cut off my lower lip, got a big (HUGE) goose egg on my head at 8 or 9 and had to go to the ER, jammed my whole foot in gymnastics at 7 or 8, sliced my hand open with my ice skates at 10 or 11, about broke my arm in softball around 13, and broken my nose multiple times. I'm sure there is more. Man, I got hurt a lot as a kid.

I have had injuries since becoming an adult also, just not as many (so far). Broke my nose, screwed up my ankle twice, really messed up my knee a bunch (I have a bad knee), and messed up my back pretty bad a couple of times (I gotta bad back now too). I thought my kids were just injury prone but I guess not. I guess they are just adventurous kids with no fear like their Momma.

Toot broke her nose at 3, she messed her leg up real bad at 1, and has lost her toenail multiple times (same toe every time). Smiley tried to fly a couple of months ago, pierced his lip with his tooth at 1, fell and took a huge chunk out of his lip about 4 months ago, and burned real bad all ten finger tips on a grill a month ago. Little Man, nothing, and he's 10. He's not real adventurous. Oh wait, he did burn his hand on a muffler at 6 but it wasn't bad.



Aren't you glad you asked, Carrin? So, ya, I think I would go with the paper cut in the eye. I'm surprised I haven't already done it. Unless, someone has a worse story about a paper cut in their eye, then I might reconsider. Maybe.

Are you like me and my two little ones or more like my oldest?