Dodging a bullet...

We dodged a small but potent bullet last week when a stick thrown at a wooden lattice gate surprisingly managed to find its way through one of the tiny holes and strike my son in the face. Fortunately the impact was just below his eye rather than in it and once he got over the shock and the doctor steri-stripped the two deep cuts up and he discovered that an injury gives you a certain cred at school things got back pretty much to normal. I do not like to dwell on the what ifs of this situation. Suffice it to say i have now added 'don't throw sharp aerodynamic objects at people no matter how safe you consider the conditions to be', to, no running with sharp objects and no slamming doors when playing. It seems to take all the years until adulthood (and sometimes that is not even enough) to realise that no one expects an accident to happen. Thats why they are called accidents. Children and adrenalin junkie adults like to see how risky a risk really is. Parents are the people who have a fair idea and try to pass this information on but it seems a few risks that become accidents have to be experienced for the information to sink in. Parents also get good at the post-risk-testing patch up and have a lot of practice at the hope-this-isn't-serious prayer. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger and its character building, especially when there are a few scars involved. Its not just kids that have to survive growing up, it's their parents who have to survive it too.