The first time I took Mason rollerskating by himself was in September of 2006, a few months before his fifth birthday. Susan wasn’t feeling well that day and did not go to the skating rink with us. I figured it would be a nice, stress-free trip out of the house for the two of us.

Mason fell that day and hit his elbow really hard. He screamed and screamed and said he couldn’t move his arm or feel his fingers. According to my blog entry from that day, after an ice pack was applied, he felt much better. That’s the thing with a first kid though — everything’s new so it’s tough to tell the difference between a broken bone and a bad bruise. By the time the second kid rolls around you can spot the difference from a mile away, and even the bad injuries don’t rattle you as much anymore.

Mason, 2006.

For our Christmas break I promised to take the kids rollerskating and bowling. Tuesday was rollerskating day. Morgan’s 8 and Mason’s 12 now. I don’t watch over them like a hawk when they’re doing something like rollerskating. I don’t want to and they don’t want me to.

My mom and one of the kids’ cousins Griffin met us at the skating rink. While my mom and I were talking, Griffin ran up to us and said, “Morgan fell real bad.”

I have never seen a kid fall hard enough at a skating rink where they turned on all the lights, stopped the music, and essentially the entire skating rink froze in time, but that’s what happened. When the music stopped all that was left to hear was Morgan screaming. By the time the referee had walked her off the rink, Morgan was covering her mouth and blood was running out of it.

One ice pack and a few paper towels later and we were able to see that Morgan had apparently fallen face first and her top two teeth had sunk directly into her upper lip.

So Morgan welcomed 2014 with a minor fat lip and the kids are ready to go bowling today. What’s the worst that could happen?