Slide Mishap (Updated 4/1/08)
Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the nice weather by going the BIG playground at Mercer County Park. Unfortunately, our fun ended pretty quickly…On her second trip down the twisty slide, Natalie put her foot down. The rubber sole of her shoe caused traction, but she was already moving pretty fast, so she flipped over and hit her face on the side of the slide (which was plastic). Chris tried to catch her, so she may also have fallen against his arm. Neither of us could see exactly what happened, but her screaming made it pretty clear she was hurt. We could see blood pooling up in her mouth—a pretty scary sight— but couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. When we got back to the car, she nursed herself to sleep…so we reasoned that her mouth couldn’t have been too hurt, otherwise nursing would have been painful rather than comforting.
When she woke up from her nap, she still wanted to play outside, so we walked to the little playground around the corner from our house. Natalie was happy take the walk and climb up the stairs at the playground, but wouldn’t go near the slide! Hopefully she won’t be traumatized for life, since going down the slide used to be one her favorite activities.
Today her cheek near the corner of her mouth is a little bruised, but she’s eating, drinking, and nursing fine, so there must not be any permanent damage.
UPDATE: We just found out that the same thing happened to Natalie’s friend Robert—on the same exact slide! We’ll definitely be steering clear of that slide. It’s a hazard!
Here are some pictures from happier times at the playground from earlier this week:
