When I was pregnant with my second daughter, I went to the doctor for the usual first prenatal visit. The hospital had a standard list of questions for that first visit. We had covered medical history, stress levels, and family size. My oldest was then 11 months old, and I was happy to be pregnant again. Now we got to the questions that were clearly designed to determine if the mother was being abused at home.
“Are you ever kicked, hit or shoved in your home?” the nurse asked me.
She had been reading the questions quickly, her eyes on the page, trying to move through the list she surely had memorized. She stopped and looked up at me at the first word of my answer.
“Only by the baby,” I said.
She blinked at me. “That doesn’t count,” she said.
Easy for you to say, I thought.
Of all the changes that occur with motherhood, I think the one nobody warned me about was how often my energetic, loving, wriggly children would knee me in the gut, or scratch me with their tiny nails, or, worst of all, smash that heavy little noggin right into my nose/chin/temple/eye.
Having babies hurts in more ways than one.
I want to tell you that I am a patient saint of a mother who calmly says to my toddler, “Now, honey, you need to be gentler than that.” But I’m not that mother. Not always. I roar. I cry. I holler.
Last month I was snuggling my sweet, happy, nineteen-pound Baby PoppySeed, tickling her and squeezing her in a big hug. When I wrapped my arms around her giggling self, she decided to hug me back. With her teeth. She bit into that fleshy part (hey – it’s fleshy on me) just below my shoulder. Hard. I shrieked and pulled her away, roaring, “You do NOT bite Mama!”
She cried. Great big disconsolate tears fell and she wailed. It took me five minutes to completely comfort her.
Because that’s the other thing they don’t tell you about motherhood: when the kids cause you pain, YOU have to comfort THEM.
Nobody ever said life was fair.
Oh, this brings back memories of all the times Boykiddo smashed us with his big head–especially when we were cuddling in bed in the mornings. Ugh. The pain. And it didn’t end with him until he was at least five years old.
Teenage Daughter actually gave me a hairline fracture under my eyebrow when she threw back her HUGE head while I has holding her on my lap. I think she was two at the time, but she had a head of a 5 year old!
Fortunately my skull healed and Daughter grew into her head!
“When the kid causes you pain, YOU have to comfort them.”
Foreshadowing for the teenage years.
So true! Anja’s latest game is to bite me while nursing. Praise God she has no teeth yet, because nipple? I’d like you to stay attached.
Yeah, I have a knee-jerk reaction too. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.
My 9-year-old was getting wild with his recorder, jumping around and going nuts rock-star style. He did a big dramatic finish and hit me on top of my head with it, full force.
I howled and my husband said it couldn’t have hurt THAT badly.
I wanted to slam the recorder down on HIS noggin, but I didn’t. It would be a bad example, and then I’d probably have to buy a new recorder.
The Boy was ALWAYS cracking me in the jaw with his jumbo-sized head. Owwww.
JUST THIS MORNING, The Baby playfully slapped me HARD across the face, and I shrieked “NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!” – and then she started wailing and I had to comfort my wee abuser. The injustice.
When I was expecting my older son you to start off with a hug around the neck as I squatted down to his level – he could not help picking his feet up. The number of times I fell forward (on him and the baby!) or backwards on my ass, or any which way struggling not to fall and got a migraine for my efforts -yes, the occasional roar, he minded that less than the times I actually cried, my tears truly terrified him. It was a party of sadness and well, boo-boos.
I swear my nose is a different shape than it was before I had kids. My older son has a hard head and I can’t even count how many times he stood up too fast when I was lovingly bent over him zipping his pants or something and BAM! reshaped my nose for me. YOW!
The elbow in the eye was one of my perennial favorites.
“Nursing my bruises and the people who cause them”
That would be a great book title.
HAH! A friend and I were just discussing this yesterday. My son (19 months) loves to “pat pat” people and things. The cat knows to run away, but his little friends do not, especially when my kid ALSO has a toy car in his hand, with which he vigorously pats his friend’s little head.
Howls from both.
And my son bites, often when excited, but also often when I am having to remove him from something he is doing that I don’t want him to do that he is refusing to refrain from doing. (stupid sentence…) And then he bites that very part on my shoulder that you reference. And all the books tell me to “be gentle” in my discipline. And positive. And distract him, etc. Hard to remain positive when you are practicaly bleeding.
As always. Love your posts.
Oh, so true.
I usually take the bruises fairly well, but I remember I once tore a gash in my leg while the 3 kids and I were out in the driveway. The kids were too little to be outside alone, so I called them to go inside with me. As I watched the blood began to pool under my foot, they didn’t even move. I was struck by how I am supposed to drop everything and comfort their slightest boo-boo, and they weren’t concerned for me a bit. I started thinking how difficult it would be to clean those bloody footprints off the carpet, and I snapped. For all the neighbors to hear, I screamed, “COULD YOU PLEASE PRETEND THAT YOU CARE ABOUT ME A LITTLE AND MOVE!” They eventually came in, but no one hurried.
You are SO right. I’ve always thought this was particularly unfair when a baby/toddler bites while nursing. Of COURSE I’m going to roar! But the poor baby thinks the world just ended, so of course you have to rock and cuddle and oh gee, nurse him to help him feel better…
I have become convinced that lips are not for the purpose of making intelligible speech, or for keeping food in the mouth, but for protecting baby heads from the dangers of their mother’s sharp, hard teeth. I have had many a bloody, swollen lip to attest to this theory.
Can I add one? I have a story of how a toddler injured his mom and may have saved her life in the long run.
This happened to my SIL’s best friend. She was standing and leaning over her toddler son, pulling his pants on. His back was to her legs, so they were facing the same direction.
Suddenly, he jumped up and smacked the front of her neck. The pain took her breath away and she was sore for several days. There was even a lump. She decided she should go to the doctor to have it looked at because she thought she had internal bruising or something. It turned out she had thyroid cancer. It didn’t hurt or bother her until her son bashed her neck with his head.
I’m still sporting a bruise/scrape combination on the bridge of my nose from a Thomas the Tank Engine-fisted jab welded by my 12 month old. She’s also recently taken to biting my shoulder when I least expect it.
So, needless to say, we’ve had some of those “NO! YOU DON’T BITE YOUR MOTHER!” lately, too.
that’s so true. my son always tells me, be nice mama, when i’m getting on to him.
At least it was your should and not…. well… you know. Love the blog, by the by!
This is the one thing I have very little patience for. Whenever my son, even when he was much, much younger, hits or scratches me, I shout. He has this awful habit of picking at a mole at the nape of my neck and will draw blood. I will probably have to have it removed because he will not stop despite crying after I blow up at him.
When my oldest daughter was still nursing, and starting to move her hands around with very modest control, we had a particularly sweet night of bonding that ended with her forehead pressed on mine, and her little eyes looking at me SOOO sweetly. I remember thinking, “I never want to forget this.” She promptly jabbed her pinkie finger up my nose and drew blood. God has a terrific sense of humor… don’t you think?
I can relate. So very much.
I think my kids have broken my nose–twice.
This really is what I’m in for? Oh dear!
So far I think the worst pain my 11 week old son has caused me is a sore tooth. He has really good head control but every once in a while starts moving it around unsteadily trying to look at everything at once….and a few days ago smacked right into my front tooth. I pulled him away and bit my lip to keep from hollerin (hurt like hell), and he just continued looking around like nothing happened. Didn’t faze him a bit.
Oh yes. I know of what ye speak. Biting in particular makes me holler.
Last night, I snuggled in with Sean in his bed and for some inexplicable reason, he threw his head back and whacked me square in the nose. I thought he had broken it. It hurt and it made me mad.
This brings back memories of the biting during nursing. Here, nine years later and I can still feel the pain of those two teeny teeth chomping into my nipple.
Ouch.
I always feel so awful after I yelp at my kids. They didn’t MEAN to do it after all (er, mostly). But I still respond as though I’ve been whacked in the stomach by an adult – all outraged and hurt, and then I realize right away that I’ve overreacted. But I do it almost EVERY time. Boo.