The Boxing Ring of Motherhood

Motherhood is like boxing, and the mom is the one always getting beat up on. Now I'm not talking about the metaphorical boxing that pregnancy and nursing have on one's body, like the sagging boobs, broken vaginas, and abs that simply refuse to resume their original form. I am talking LITERAL blood and stitches and broken bones, etc.

This first occurred to me at the end of Alexandra's nursing, when she was almost one year old, when one morning while nursing her in bed she stood up and then fell over like a giant tree, her skull coming into direct contact with the bridge of my nose. For those who know me, my nose was broken when I was six-ish by my dad when he threw a softball and my uncoordinated self (or was it is lack of athleticism?) caught it with my nose. Hence the huge a** hump on my already sizable schnoz. Never fixed. So when Alexandra came falling down on me, after the stars cleared and the throbbing in my head slightly subsided, I fantasized of my long overdue nose job but I'm too chicken. I had two lightly blackened eyes after her fall and had to ice my nose all day at work.

Today, again, she struck. I took her to the playground to frolic in the fountain and she was so happy. The mist was blowing off the fountain, she ran over to hug me, I leaned down to kiss her and BAM! She jumped up. My entire lip split open, my eyes welled over with tears, I grabbed my mouth fearing it was going to gush blood (it didn't gush, but did bleed quite a bit) and a super nice dad behind me offered me his frozen water bottle saying, "That sucks...." OUCH. Now I have a half-inch split on the inside of my lip where my teeth cut it in half and my outer lip is pretty swollen on the left size, making me look like a lip plumping gone bad. But it's healing fast. Like strange vampire fast. Go figure.

Motherhood is not for wimps, I tell ya.

(Took a pix of my lip but it was too gross to post)