Head over heels

Today was a day of mishaps:

• Grandpa cut the power cord of the hedge trimmer.
• Miriam dropped a wagon on her foot.
• Alexander climbed into a box, tipped it over, fell out, and conked his head on the piano bench.
• Daddy knocked an open bottle of water onto his laptop. 
• I got a sliver carrying a shelf out of Rachel's room. 

Benjamin was following me from the house to the garage in his usual haphazard fashion, eager to find some work gloves so he could help in the garden. Instead he tripped on the threshold and went sailing down the stairs face first. 

When he yelled I turned to look and saw his body twisting grotesquely in the air.

He landed on the cement floor, right on his sweet little face, but his momentum lifted him back up and over again, bending his neck in a nearly impossible fashion, and then slamming him back on the ground. 

"Benjamin!" I wailed and ran to kneel down beside his poor crumpled, bleeding body. "Take a breath, buddy! Take a breath!"

Obediently, he took a shuddering breath.

"Ooooowwwwww!" he cried.

"Where does it hurt?" I asked. 

"My face! My face!" he cried.

I peppered him with questions as I picked tiny granules of rock from his cheek.

"Where else does it hurt? Your head? Your neck? Don't move! Can you feel your fingers? Your toes?"

"Well, get him up off the ground," Andrew said, arriving on the scene. "Come on, Benjamin."

"His neck! His neck!" I objected (you don't move a person with a suspected spinal injury!!) and Andrew hadn't seen him fall (it was a scary fall).

But Benjamin peeled himself off the ground and limped back up the stairs, so I got a cold cloth for him to suck on. His lip is big and fat and he might have knocked a few teeth loose, but they're teeth that should be on their way out anyway (and may have been loose before). I checked his pupils and poked and prodded him, asking him if anything hurt when I touched it. He was mostly fine.

And he was riding his scooter around by bedtime, so I think he'll be alright. 

But yikes.