I’m borrowing the title of this post from The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, that great book about the importance of letting your kids feel some of the bumps in life instead of coddling and protecting them every inch of the way. Judging from this article about the can-you-top-this attitude towards “care packages” sent to camp, parents seem not to be getting the message, however: smuggling candy to your kid by taking out half a box of kleenex, filling it with candy, and then hot-glue-gunning the box back together? Shoving M&Ms into hollowed out tennis balls, or tampon tubes? Really, America? really?
Anyway. Here’s what I learned today: you shouldn’t leave late for yoga class and half-trot to the CitiBikes stand in hopes of grabbing a bike and getting to yoga on time if you’re on an uneven New York City sidewalk and you happen to be wearing your favorite sparkly FitFlops.
Because you will somehow stumble on the loose cement and you will go sprawling on the sidewalk like … like … like a middle-aged lady falling.
And you will lie face-down on the sidewalk for a split-second and think to yourself, before everything starts to hurt, “oh crap is this going to hurt.” And then it does begin to hurt and you realize that you’ve pulled not just one layer of skin off but several layers of skin, in several different places, and you will hurl a long litany of bad words into the quiet air of an early Sunday morning.
You will wonder for a moment if you can still make it to yoga, and then you will realize that there is a wee trickle of blood going down your shin, so probably not the best thing for a yoga class, and you will hobble back to your apartment.
You will not get to yoga but you will sit on the couch with your bloody knees and read about over-indulged children at summer camp. You will wish that someone would bring you a tennis ball full of M&Ms, or at very least a cookie, but no one does. You realize that not only do your legs hurt but also that you are going to have the mother of all scabs on your legs.
There are several morals here, the first of which could be: don’t exercise. The second might be: only run in closed-toe shoes. The third might be: always have a stash of M&Ms on hand, because sometimes a skinned knee needs more than band-aids. It needs chocolate. Or maybe a drink. I wonder how the care-package crazies would smuggle alcohol into their little darlings’ camps? Vodka in orange slices? And god forbid any of these children end up in prison: mom will be right there smuggling contraband in by whatever means necessary.
Ouch.
you should see the other knee…and my right elbow…and the palms of my hands.
I am way too old for these sorts of booboos.
Ouch! I wish I had some M & Ms to send you because those boo-boos are just screaming for chocolate therapy.
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Thank you for the good wishes! My booboos need chocolate therapy like nobody’s bidness…dang it all!
I have run in my sparkly flip flops and it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t as bad as your spill, but it was pretty bad. Stay upright, unless you are doing child’s pose. Are you coming to BlogHer?
christie recently posted..Yes, I’m Squelching My Kids’ Passion
Will miss you at Blogher & hope you have fun! Can’t do child’s pose b/c of the big booboo on my ankle. Pisses me off!
That looks incredibly painful. Hope it’s feeling better by now.
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Oof! That Manhattan concrete is a harsh mistress… One day she tripped me up for daring to take a walk while simultaneously daring to eat an ice cream cone.
nikkiana recently posted..Sunday Confessions #36: Out & About, Blogging, Twitter, Word Up and Moodiness
Thanks for stopping by. I wish I had the excuse of doing something else while walking/running. But I have no excuses whatsoever: I just went kablooey. 🙁
Oh, poor poor you! The pain! The humiliation! The lost zen time!
Poor Princess recently posted..How to Devastate a Jewish Mother
Indeed. And when people ask “what happened,” I have no grand story (although I’ve considered making one up), just… um, duh, I fell. And now…oh shall I regale you with the tales of scabs & band-aids….? blech. true moral? Don’t fall.
ouch! i feel your pain, literally. the same thing just happened to me yesterday, only i fell while running on the treadmill at the gym. super cute, right? how’d your battle wounds end up healing? i’m one day in and already freaking out about the scars that will probably get left behind. tragedy all in the name of exercise. not to mention the pain… oh the pain.
Oh the pain is right! I’ve got some LOVELY booboos on my knees, elbow, and ankle–or rather the top of my ankle, just where my foot bends. And it HURTS. Plus ugly, oh yeah! And I had to go to a wedding & I’d packed precisely *one* “nice” skirt: short, natch. Me and my bandaids were the toast of the party. Sheesh. Better to sit home and eat cheetos, I think.
We want to cycle with you in Abu Dhabi 🙂
If you’re around, let’s do it! I’m away until the end of August and then (maybe) it will finally be cool enough to pedal around!