November 9, 2006

We’ve been pushing Hayes to learn his name. Ok, perhaps pushing ain’t exactly right. We don’t really push him to do anything — except behave, which normally fails. Anyway, a few weeks ago he got it. When asked his name he’d say, “Name: Hayes” Well, that’s how’d I’d write what he says. He doesn’t know what a colon is, so, well…

It was about that same time that we coined a new name for Hayes. You may remember he was HBomb for a while. Now he’s stunt baby.

Name: Hayes.

Occupation: Stunt Baby.

Yup, that’s him. And he’s earned it. It began at our friends’ place in Maine. With two year old twins, they’ve got a child safe downstairs, so we kinda let Hayes do his thing. They also have tricycle type things. Maybe they’re child safe. They’re certainly not Hayes safe. Not when I caught him trying to stand on the seat. I scolded him, and that was that.

So I thought.

Next thing I know he’s demanding, “Dada! Help!” from another room. I run in. Hayes is in a crib. In a crib. WTF? I scan the room. Next to the crib, the tricycle. He had used the tricycle to vault into the crib. I took him out. He did it gain, right in front of me. Tricycle seat > grab onto crib rail > pull himself over the edge > land on head > roll to his feet in crib.

Stunt baby.

Last week he took it to a whole new level. He got his first stunt related injury. He was sitting on the arm of the couch. I told him to get off. He does. Next thing I know, he’s falling backwards in slow motion (I’m not sure how he does slow motion), twisting a half gainer as he goes. His hands go out to brace himself for impact, but he underestimates and his hand can’t stop his entire force. He hits the ground.

Smack!

Pause.

“Waaaaaaaaa!”

Bloody nose.

Think he’d learn? You don’t know stunt baby. He was laughing within minutes. As soon as the nose stopped bleeding, he was at it again. We’re in trouble. Big trouble.