falling

If you're reading this, you have successfully navigated the latest anti-spam measure. I'm like a one-woman rampage against comment spam, except of course, I'm not actively doing anything to stop the losers who do it. I only wish there was something that could be done. I hate to keep inconveniencing you all because of my hatred of the spam, but it really is bad. The spam that is. I suppose my hatred is, as well, I suppose. My friends who have Movable Type don't have this problem, but for some reason on this journal and my pregnancy one, I would get a spam on every single entry every few days. When you have a couple hundred entries (and more all the time), that's a lot of spam, and Movable Type doesn't provide a convenient way to delete multiple comments so I have to do it one by one. Maybe someday I'll switch to a different content management program, but for now, this is it.

Gavin fell down the stairs yesterday. It wasn't as a result of his climbing up them. Up until yesterday morning, I had assumed that if he ever fell down the stairs, it would be because he was climbing up and slipped. But no, instead it was because he crawled too close to the edge of the stairs on the landing and I got there a hair too late to catch him.

So I stood there and watched, helpless, as my baby tumbled down the stairs in slow motion - thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Head over heels, he went and finally landed at the bottom. He cried, oh, how he cried. And I leapt down the stairs. I honestly think my feet didn't touch a step between the top and bottom of the flight of stairs. In fact, flight is exactly what I believe I attained. And then I was there, crouched over him, my desire to scoop him up and cuddle him and stop his crying warring with wanting to let him start moving on his own just in case something was seriously wrong with him. So I kind of half cuddled him while he lay on the ground until I could bear it no longer, then I swept him up into my arms. For a long while, we sat there on the floor, both of us crying, both of us scared, and both of us, I imagine, shaking. Eventually we calmed down and it was clear that we were both okay.

It was scary, scary, scary. I don't think I'll ever forget that moment, that eternity as I stood watching him tumble down the stairs. Now, a full day later, recalling it makes me laugh, but in that way that you often recall a frightening event, where the laughter bubbles up from inside almost hysterically and the humor is the kind you can't define or explain, since it really isn't funny at all.