I blame my son.
Art and I have always said our son's many injuries brought up the yearly average of childhood mishaps for all the children who never had any problems.
Jon started out his life by being born in the hospital elevator where Art delivered him all by himself. (Well... I helped.) The most popular jokes at that time was how it explained why Jon has his ups and downs and why was it we didn't name him Otis (elevator company).
Jon had lots of bumps and bruises as a toddler and when he was three, got his chin split open.... to the bone.
At four, he stuck his hand in the stair banister and jumped, breaking his right arm.
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At five, he fell off the school monkey bars and broke his arm in multiple places requiring a second surgery and a massive scar. (We checked later and found that the bars were loose just as he said.)
He's broken toes playing soccer, fallen off his bike (head first, of course), smashed his fingers, got hit by a baseball on his forehead in Little League, scarred his knees during Outward Bound, nearly died of malaria in the Peace Corps... and the list goes on.
I have a lot of friends whose kids never get seriously hurt. Do you think some children are just born accident prone? Is it their karma? I hoped that Jon used up his bad luck and that the rest of his life would be danger free. Sigh...
I remember when Jon was about 6 weeks old. We took him to our wonderful pediatrician who noted that our perfect baby boy had a tiny quarter inch dot where there was no skin pigment on the inside of his thigh.
"Oh no..." I thought. "What can we do for it?" I asked.
"Nothing," said the doctor with a smile.
I worried about that for a few minutes thinking our baby would have this little imperfection.
Little did I know...
