Grace

Something I have none of. My middle name means “grace”. I don’t think my parents new this when I was named, or it is just fated that someone named Grace or with a name that means grace will turn out to be a terrible klutz I have told about many of my shining moments in history over the course of my blog, and yesterday my alter ego Goofy struck again.

Just off of our family room we have to offices. One is a storage room (for my parents stuff)/Paul’s office, and the other is my sewing/junk/dump everything quick before mom sees it room. Neither room is a desirable location for our adventuring toddler who is exploring the new and exciting use of his legs. I had work (blogging) to do yesterday in my room so I shut the door tight of Paul’s office and put up the gate across my door. I don’t like to shut it when I am in there because then I can’t see what the little man is getting into, so I put a nice tall gate across the door. It is not the usual baby gate, it is a doggy gate and is much taller. It hits me about mid hip and I can barely straddle it with one leg on each side as I climb over it.

Now, one would find it logical in such circumstances to simply unlock the gate, move it, and then put back in place again. But I, I was in a hurry. I have leapt building in a single bond, I can handle a gate! After all I am Reflexigirl, remember? I have scaled the heights of this particular gate a million times (well at least upwards of 20 anyway). The doorbell rang and I jumped to answer.

As I was charging the gate I didn’t happen to notice that the toe of my tennis shoe (one reason I go barefoot, I can feel things better, I have learned my lesson)had caught upon the edge of the gate. I was sailing over the gate and onto the floor when this realization hit me. To busy avoiding the awestruck toddler to the left of me I failed to put my hands our to catch my fall and let my knees do the job for me. In the process of my fall of fame I clipped with my flailing right arm the tower of six large toy bins outside my office door (we haven’t quite gotten back to normal yet from my parents arrival home, etc.). With a great resonating crash they fell narrowly missing my head, I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes as a duplo block went sailing past. Jacob began wailing, and I assured him the toys were just fine, heh, and then hobbled to the front door to accept a package from the mailman of some very interesting books (thanks Karen, I’m excited to read them).

As my daughter Elizabeth complained about picking up the duplos that she didn’t play with after school yesterday I did feel a slight pang of guilt, but I didn’t think I could kneel long enough to pick them up, heh. 🙂

Then last night (I had long since shedded my shoes) I was heading to bed, having just brushed and flossed my teeth, when I smashed the toes on my right foot (thankfully not my lawnmower foot) into the cinderblock under our bed (we have them under there to raise the bed up a bit to allow for some extra storage). This time I felt a little too much, as I collapsed howling onto the bed, and realized it was one reason I wear shoes and that I had learned my lesson again.