i ain't been cruisin' but still there's bruisin'

in case there was ever any doubt, i think it has officially been confirmed that cohen is a bit of a bruiser. not that he is a bully or aggressive with others, but he does like to be rough and tumble in his play, and fearless, oh so very fearless. yesterday at the park he was running for his soccer ball and took a tumble on the pavement. when he looked up i could see blood. "please don't let him have lost more tooth" i silently thought, but no it turns out he just lost part of the skin on his nose and upper lip. nothing 10 seconds of crying and then another run at the soccer ball couldn't fix. then today he was playing on the couch, you know the routine, jumping and flailing, with me exclaiming "get down from there before you break a bone", and him climbing down only to jump back up there seconds later. sure enough in his regular jumping fashion he took a nose dive off the couch with his forehead taking the brunt of the fall. i should have taken a picture to show you, but he now has road rash on his nose and lip and a huge bruise on his forehead, coupled with the scar in between his eyes from his worst fall yet, and the chipped front tooth and you have all the signs of a boxer. the crazy thing is that none of this ever deters him, as if it is instinctual, his need to go out and conquer things with a fierce intensity that not even pain can knock out of him. i have no doubt that the road to adulthood with him is going to be paved with many bandages.

the sun was shining again today and it was actually, dare i say, warm out or the first time in forever so we went out to the park again (because really, there is no better way to spend an afternoon, well other than sleeping, but i don't think cohen would be up for that). we played in the sand and swung on the swings and then cohen surprised marko and i by climbing the stairs up to the little slide all on his own and then sitting himself down and sliding down without a care in the world and landing flat on his feet. this may sound like small potatoes (and really i guess it is), but for us it signified something bigger. he has never done the whole thing on his own, we had no idea he was even close to ready, but in true big kid fashion he once again showed us that he isn't a baby anymore. he smiled the whole way down and then ran to the stairs to do it again. after the fourth time he started up to the big slide (one platform up). we weren't so sure about that so marko followed him up, he made it all the way by himself and sat himself down, then pushed himself off, once again he had no fear. i was of course at the bottom to get him on this one, but i don't think he would have cared if i wasn't, likely he would have fallen over from the speed and then picked himself up to start again.

all this got me thinking, what if this baby is a boy? am i going to have two fearless monkeys to watch? will i forever be waiting for the cut or the bruise or worse yet, break, to happen? i am not much of an extreme sports enthusiast, neither is marko, there is no snowboarding or mountain biking in our bag of outdoor activities, a hike or some snowshoeing is about as close as we get. i hope we can keep with up them, more importantly though, i hope my heart is strong enough to handle the impact.

oh and nope, no baby yet, not even a clear sign that it will be soon. we are enjoying our last days together as a family of three so much though, it would seem that we have hardly noticed. i have said it before but it is true, the perspective is completely different when you already have a child keeping your hands full, but then maybe that is just because i know how much work i have in store for me! i'll keep you posted.