he does his own stunts

Even though he's almost three, and my brother makes fun of me, most of the time I still hold Elian's hand when he walks down the stairs.

Today we were playing basketball upstairs when the doorbell rang. I told him to stay upstairs while I ran down to see who it was (FedEx). He said, "I'm gonna come down, Mama" and I said, "Okay, just be careful." Then I heard a noise that would stop anyone's heart.

He fell half a flight of stairs and landed face first on the hardwood landing. I immediately just scooped him up and started vigorously rocking him in the rocking chair. He was very still as he cried and cried and cried much harder and longer than he usually does when he gets hurt. Then I thought, shit, maybe I shouldn't have even moved him. I began frantically asking him what hurt and if he was crying because he was scared or hurt. He said he was scared and in between gasps, stuttered things that I couldn't understand. Finally, he was able to get out that just his face hurt. I put an ice pack on his face as much as he would tolerate and eventually the crying stopped and he was back to cracking jokes. Luckily, his pudgy cheeks probably helped cushion his fall.

I think I'm going to start looking into crash helmets.