Toddler Tumbles=Mama Cuddles

My poor, poor little Fiesty. She's got road rash, raspberries, whatever you wanna call 'em on her knees. Both knees. And she's not happy about it.

Fiesty is a tough girl. She has endured countless injuries to her head, had several black eyes, and many other injuries, mainly courtesy of her loving, but rough older siblings, in her thus far short life. She has survived them all with the braveness and toughness of a WWF champ. But she doesn't like road rash. Not.At.All. She's never had knee injuries before. And Wednesday night, she got FOUR. That's right. Four. Maybe it's because she was wearing shoes a size too small because Daddy was in charge of dressing her that day. Maybe it's because she was wearing a SKIRT instead of pants because..that's right, you guessed it...Daddy was in charge of dressing her that day. Or maybe it's just because she's a toddler and that particular day was extra clumsy. We'll give Daddy the benefit of the doubt...this once.

At any rate, she was a hurtin' unit that night. Large, red, and very painful looking sores encompassed the circumference of her little knees. She tried to be tough. She still wanted to be outside. But once the sores re-opened after her fourth fall in to the evil lava rocks outside our house, it was over. Her huge tears made me want to cry, but obviously I couldn't do that. I needed to be tough for my little girl. Cries of, "hole me" interchanged with "Jesus tape" (her video tape of choice right now which has 17 good old fashioned Sunday School songs sung by young children and very cheap videography but nonetheless very attractive to her) were her theme for the next half hour. I gathered her up in my arms, put on her Jesus tape, and cuddled her for the length of the video. I didn't even mind that I had to sit there and watch the video for the gazillionth time. I got to cuddle with her, which is a rarity these days. While we sat together, her tears began to subside, and her eyes began to get heavy. Every once in awhile, she looked up at me, said, "Hi mommy", put her hand on my face and said,"Friend". I held her til she fell asleep.

I hate that my little girl was in pain, but the cuddles I got as a result were my favorite mommy moment this week. I miss the cuddle time that is so rare these days, so I'll take it when I get it!