Stories

My Toddler Fell Off An 8ft Playscape and It Made Me So Happy

My toddler fell off an 8ft playscape and it made me so happy. Sounds terrible, I know, but they’re made of rubber at that age. Can’t go wrapping them in bubble wrap, hovering all helicopter-like. Or hoovering all germ-phobia-like whilst they spread crumb confetti to spice up the carpets and develop their palates with much more sophisticated dust bunnies. Wise mom friends warned me not to treat my first child like a first child. Treat them like a second, or a fourth, they said. Teach them joy and independence at the expense of a few booboos. Keep them from developing allergies. Let them eat dirt.

My child did eat dirt, quite a lot of it. Also peanuts. If he’d gotten a peanut allergy, he and his subsequent brothers would’ve died of hunger, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches being one of the only things they’d reliably eat for years. So, obviously my kid survived, and my mom friends gave me good advice that not only made my kids’ lives more fun, but even healthier in the end. And it gave me the chance to breathe and be more easy-going.

Psych! Well, sort of. I watched a lot of Psych! reruns in that time period while breastfeeding and eating microwaved meals one-handed. But I also only half-followed my friends’ advice (second child divided by two equals first child). I did completely avoid bubble wrap. I mean, what kind of psychopath would wrap their child in any kind of plastic when safe sleep rules don’t even allow loose blankets?

Peanuts also appeared on my baby’s plate as soon as he started eating solid food—in the form of easily dissolved, non-choking-hazard Bamba puffs. Their Cheeto-like nature was perhaps not the greatest nutritionally, but worth it to avoid life-long, life-threatening peanut allergies according to my extensive, neurotic-but-evidence-based internet research. I also ate them while watching TV. My baby grabbed one a time or two. Made a nice gritty paste for my nipples, which totally needed exfoliating. Or being outright bitten. Mmm…strawberry (bloody) peanut butter milk.

And then there’s the dirt. My kid ate a lot of dirt, largely because that is unavoidable if you want your child to reap the multitude of science-backed benefits of playing outside ever. Or inside if you have to leave them on the carpet within eyeshot of the open bathroom door for a few minutes (the carpet not having been vacuumed quite recently enough to avoid those tastiest of dust bunnies).

My child didn’t eat dirt in the metaphorical sense of face-planting from falling off an 8 ft playscape, however. Because I hovered like the mother of helicopter parents, despite the side-eye of some rando caregivers on the playground sidelines. And despite the more gentle looks of pity from my mom friends sitting on benches while their ruly children roamed around the base of the play structure turning a color wheel meant for that purpose or sitting nicely with another toddler making artistic piles of rocks without even tasting them.

Meanwhile, my unruly child, the eldest of three unruly children all clearly descended from monkeys, climbed to the top of the playscape meant for children 5-12. Some combination of a bigger kid running across the bouncy bridge and my kid paying no attention whatsoever to his surroundings caused him to fall sideways off an 8 ft drop-off. I caught him.

Justification! It made me so happy. My kid tried mightily to make himself a tragic example for playscape age ratings. Now I had a personal example for following guidelines often scoffed at as over-protective, and for believing a mother’s intuition/ straight-up knowledge of her own children. I no longer needed to defensively explain survivorship bias when I hovered or put my kid in a helmet or rear-facing carseat. I could preemptively give my own anecdotal evidence instead!

Unfortunately, that meant years chasing monkeys at any high playscapes or non-fenced-in areas instead of sitting on the sidelines chatting companionably with other parents. It still means I can’t ignore my intuition even when it sucks and means missing out on fun activities my friends and their weirdly careful kids get to participate in. I also sometimes need second opinions and get news I don’t want to hear. But that sometimes means my kids get treatments before illnesses progress. It means I’ve acquired tools to help my neurodivergent children because they weren’t “just fine”. And it’s meant finding community with others who share similar challenges, but also similar joys.

I’m pleased to report that my oldest not only survived, but is thriving, and naturally picked parkour as his extracurricular activity wherein he routinely jumps between 15 ft high platforms. I sit on the sidelines, occasionally gritting my teeth, occasionally with actual Cheetos in between them. My oldest also recently attended his friend’s Hunger Games themed birthday party where they got some nice outdoor time socializing in person and pretending to kill each other with Nerf guns. Very wholesome. He’s also fiercely protective of his younger siblings, which for him includes only encouraging them to jump off things he deems appropriate to their skill level. Sometimes it even correlates with my own assessment!

He also knows how glad I am he fell off an 8 ft playscape as a toddler and why. To quote the end of an absurdist “story” he lovingly wrote for his brother: “The ending is happifying now!”