We have two children, a six year old and a two year old. Our treadmill is down in the basement. I had to bring it in from the outside because the stairs down to the basement are those metal circular stairs.
I’ve been running for about half an hour when I hear a sound and see my two year old falling headfirst down the gap between the circular stairs and the ceiling. She literally bounces from the ten foot fall. I jump off the treadmill screaming. She’s trying to get up and I’m telling her to lie still (but two year olds listen to good.) She wants me to pick her up and hug her. I don’t want her to move, because I’m worried something’s broken.
Miraculously she is completely unharmed by the experience.
Later, I examine the stairs which I had thought were babyproofed. For the life of me I cannot figure out how she managed to climb over the safety railing and fall. There’s just no way, and yet she did. I settle for rigging some netting in the gap that she fell through, though I realize that this is like closing the barn door after the horse got out. Being a two-year old, my daughter is learning, and is unlikely to repeat such a bad experience. She will find new and exciting ways to risk her safety and age her parents.
Two weeks later I’m running on the treadmill when out of the corner of my eye, I see my baby again fall down the gap in the circular stairs and crash to the floor in a motionless heap.
This time, I lose my balance trying to leap off the treadmill screaming, crash into the couch and knock over Irving the punching bag. Crawling desperately I pull myself over to my motionless daughter…
Except it’s not my daughter.
It’s a towel.
You see, the washing machine is also in the basement, and my wife couldn’t be bothered to walk down the stairs so she just threw the towel over the railing and through the space in the netting I’d rigged.
I hold the towel in shaking hands with eyes filled with tears, and yes, I know it sounds funny but I seriously considered spousal homicide.
I carry the towel upstairs and confront my wife with it.
“YOU!.. THIS TOWEL… YOU DROPPED IT DOWN STAIRS…” I hold the offending bit of linen out as the damning piece of evidence it is, wet with sweat from my run and shaking with adrenaline reaction.
My wife simply stairs at me in genuine shock. She’s speechless.
I grow angrier. She doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the sin she has just committed.
My six year old is sitting on the couch, eyes wide. She covers her mouth with her hands.
“WELL!” I demand of my wife.
“You’re scaring your daughter. Look at yourself.”
“Don’t make this about me. I didn’t do this.”
“Look at yourself!” My wife replies in a no nonsense tone, not to be ignored.
“What?” I say, looking down. “Oh.”
“Daddy, all your blood is coming out.”
“Wow, yes, it is, isn’t it,”
In my fall off the treadmill I have gashed my knee open, and it’s bleeding freely down my whole leg (looking a lot worse than it is, because of the sweat.)
“Daddy, boo-boo” says my two year old.
“Let’s fix daddy’s boo-boo,” says my wife, never one to miss an educational opportunity for the children while simultaneously derailing my righteous wrath.
I spend the next fifteen minutes laying on the floor while my kids take turns dabbing my knee with wet paper towels, and spraying bactine all over my lower extremities. They then use enough Scooby doo bandaids, gauze and tape to mummify my leg.
Later, I use my status as the head of the household to institute a firm “No throwing laundry down the stairs while Daddy is on the treadmill rule.” No exceptions.
