Genetics Strikes Again!

It's always amusing for me to see what features, traits and mannerisms each of our kids get from Ken and I.  Kaycie has Ken's lips.  Knolan has my nose.  Kaycie rolls her eyes up and to the side like I do when she's thinking.  Knolan rubs his nose just like Kenny.

One thing's for sure, though.  Their accident prone genes came from their mama!

In the past 36 hours alone, Knolan has already chipped his front tooth while cruising around the only room in our house that is completely baby proofed, and Kaycie came home from school with a fat lip and the bridge of her nose swollen because she wiped out while she was walking.  Knolan has managed to infuriate himself by hitting himself in the face with a toy, and Kaycie, who has the advantage of more years under her belt, has also previously somehow run into a tree, tripped herself with her own feet many times, and - one of my favourites - come running to me in hysterics because she got her arms folded back on themselves and trapped in her shirt sleeves. 

Thank goodness that playing "Medical Centre" seems to distract Kaycie long enough to stop the tears, and fortunately, cuddling is still an effective treatment for Knolan's injuries.

I had hoped that I could pass along my love of music, or my mad spelling skills to my children - and maybe there is still time and room for those traits to take root.  But for now, I can see my clumsiness in them plain as day, and all I can do is batten down the hatches.  I'll be honest... I do fear for them a wee bit if they have truly inherited this part of me.

I've always been accident prone.  At one point I was seriously considering whether I needed to get tested for some sort of spatial perception disorder, but eventually, I settled in on believing that there was just constantly too much going on in that little ol' noggin of mine and that I needed to learn how to focus a little harder on what my arms and legs were doing when they were in motion.

Via

I think back on my various wonky mishaps with fondness.  Ah memories...

• There was the time I stabbed myself in the hand with a steak knife while trying to separate beef patties.  All I remember is a spurting fountain of blood and a trip to the emergency room (and a lecture on using knives to separate frozen hamburgers!).
• In related news, there was another time that I jabbed a pencil tip into the palm of my hand and it stayed there.  And so did a little dot of graphite... for at least 8 years!
• I also managed to flip my entire bicycle up and over myself one day when I was biking along and a plastic bag full of who knows what dangling from my handle bars got caught in the spokes of my front wheel.  As I picked myself up and dusted myself off and dragged my mangled bike home, a kid walked up to me and said, "Are you ok?"  I thought it was sweet of them to be concerned, but I was quick to reassure him that I was just fine.  And I was, until he slowly said, "Are you sure?  Because you are totally covered in blood."  Then I looked down at my shirt and saw blood everywhere and touched my face and it was coated in blood and I immediately burst into tears and went running for my mom.  (Moms make everything better!)
• There was also the time when I jumped up in the air and landed completely splits-style (think Mary Lou Retton!) on the suspension bridge that joined two parts of  the play structure in our school yard at recess.  I am seriously surprised I didn't break a limb that day.
• Hmm... oh yes!  We were forbidden to slide down the bannister in the house we grew up in.  Although I still maintain to this day that I was NOT going to slide down the bannister, but I was merely trying to cool off my leg by laying it along the railing because it was hot in the house (*eye roll*), I did manage to flip over one side of the U-shaped bannister, grab hold of the far railing before I fell to my untimely demise, and hold on for dear life until my parents excecuted a perfect tag team rescue.
• I walked full tilt into a tree once on a school field trip.
• I ended up with a face that apparently "looked exactly like Donald Duck" in university when I played on a soft ball team.  Cause of the duck face?  I was the relay player catching a ball being thrown in from outfield.  The last thing I remember before I was cracked in the teeth with the ball as it passed in front of the blinding sun was, "Wow... that looks like a solar eclipse!"
• I was rewarded with an extensive WSIB claims process after I managed to completely wipe out at work after my sweater got tangled on a cubicle wall.
• I fell face first on the sidewalk outside of one of my previous workplaces and tore my pants as I was walking in to meet with my old boss and my thesis advisor to propose a published study with them.  I was mortified.
• I had to go to a job interview with a scorch mark on the palm of my hand after the end of my hair dryer kind of exploded in my hand.
• And... my piece de resistance:  I slammed my own head in a car door.  I think it could have happened to anyone, but Kenny begs to differ.  It was all very innocent, really.  He and I were on a road trip and he didn't feel very well.  We stopped at a convenience store so I could get him some Gravol or something, and as I held the driver's side door open with my left hand, I leaned my head into the car to ask him if he wanted something to drink while I was in there, and when I was done talking to him, I slammed the door shut before I managed to pull my head out of the way.  I don't think I'll ever forget the look on his face when he realized what I had done!  By the way, about a year later, it must have been such a proud day for Ken's parents when they happened to hear their daughter-in-law describing the whole embarassing incident on a call-in show on weird self-inflicted injuries on CFRB 1010.

Now that I think on it, we might be smart to start wrapping most of our house in foam and bubble wrap.

For the safety of the children, of course!  LOL