A Hit for Reality

This morning I took the girls outside. It's still a bit chilly, but we bundled up in sweatshirts and jeans, and were just fine. I spent the time outside working on a small garden bed. The girls dug for jewels and other mysteries, then they went onto the deck and played with some old flower pots - making "flower pizzas". I was just three steps below them in the yard. As I was listening to them chatter on about flower pizzas and dirt and jewels and other imaginary things, I smiled to myself, pleased with their little imaginations at work. As some of you who also blog may do as well, my mind wandered to a possible blog post about the morning. About how that moment felt so good, felt exactly like what I thought the joys and awards of parenthood would be like. My heart grew warmer as I mentally narrated the scene. Far off in the distance, I heard D1 whine about a crack in her pizza pot. As I knelt with my head down, from the corner of my eye I could see her coming towards me, but still I dreamed on.

And that's when she dropped the terra cotta pot onto my head. It broke into several pieces. ON MY HEAD. Ok, maybe you don't understand. She was on the deck, I was down on my hands and knees in the dirt. And she dropped a flower pot onto my head. My head broke the pot. Ok, do you understand now? The pain, I mean. I was lucky, it did not bleed - surprising since head wounds are supposed to bleed like crazy. But I guess I was lucky, nothing actually punctured my skin.

As I type this with one hand, the other hand holding ice to the lump that is forming on my head, I have to laugh, and once again remind all of you that parenthood is nothing like you think it will be. But it's certainly full of surprises.