Forgotten Sleep

You’d think I would learn. Didn’t I just write the other day about all the bodily abuse I endure from my children.

Yep. I must have some deep-seated masochistic nature that, until now, has been dormant. Tonight, Little Man attacked again.

For her birthday, we bought Big Girl a recorder. You know, one of those musical instruments that breaks down into three parts — we all played them in elementary school. Well, she loves it. And, so does her brother. After she finished playing with it this evening, he felt it was his turn.

It was really quite cute. He stood next to his Laz-y-Boy, put it in his mouth and tried to blow. Then, when that didn’t work, he decided to just crawl around the room with it. Silly me happened to be lying in the middle of the floor, again attempting to stretch my ever-excruciating back muscles. Apparently, I seemed like an excellent obstacle over which to crawl. Since I was lying on my stomach, I figured I was safe.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Little Man has rather short legs, making it a bit of a chore to get a leg-up, so to speak, when crawling over things. To help himself along, he tends to flail his arms. This time, of course, one hand held the plastic recorder.

My head was already turned to the side, facing the direction in which he was crawling. I never even saw it coming. All of a sudden — SMACK. The big end of the plastic recorder connected, full-force, with my upper lip and teeth. The swelling began immediately, and I lifted myself off the floor, convinced that I would see blood splattered all over my cream-colored carpet.

Fortunately not, but as I sat there for a few minutes, trying to will the pain to lessen, my lip started to feel more and more as if it had just been injected with collagen. Having never been socked in the mouth before, I was curious about the appearance of my upper lip. This is what I saw in the mirror:

A nicely formed blood blister. My own personal hematoma of the mouth.

Seriously, I think I’m going to start searching for recovery programs designed for mommies who suffer abuse at the hands of their children. Or maybe I can teach them to go after Loving Husband for a change.