When children attack

Motherhood is rough.

I’m not talking about emotions here. I’m talking physically rough. I’m talking just-got-back-from-the-doctor-with-a-minor-concussion rough. Seriously. My preschooler gave me a concussion.

In what will forever be known in our family as the day mom officially became a wuss, my 4-year-old daughter slammed her head into the back of mine. She was fine; I screamed in pain. A week of headaches later, I went to the doctor (despite my husband’s mockery) and was told I likely have a concussion.

I would have expected this kind of roughhousing from boys. Boys come home from the hospital with a small tag clamped to their umbilical cord reading, “Warning: This baby will one day jump off the roof of the house with a grocery bag as a parachute.”

But I have daughters. Aren’t girls supposed to have tea parties? I didn’t expect my sweet little daughter to be doing kamikaze dives off the back of the couch, or into my skull.

Then again, I was never the play-by-herself-quietly type of child, either. I was stitched up multiple times – once for using the countertops as mini-parallel bars to propel my chin directly into the floor, and once for stepping on a hanger while dancing around with a pillowcase on my head. I was what you might call a moron.

So maybe this is payback for all the grief I caused my own mother. Or perhaps it’s all part of the immutable law of motherhood: A child at rest never stays at rest, and a child in motion will stay in motion until he hits someone square in the face.

What’s the worst injury that your kids have sustained or inflicted? Do you think boys necessarily play rougher than girls?

Erin Stewart is a regular blogger for Deseret News. From stretch marks to the latest news for moms, Stewart discusses it all while her 4-year-old daughter crams Mr. Potato Head pieces in her little sister’s nose.