Sunshine Knievel

© Ragnarock | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

 

I think I have sprouted more grey hair.

Yesterday was another BEAUTIFUL day here in central Texas. Like most children, Sunshine loves to play outside. She is of the age where I do feel comfortable letting her go out and play throughout the apartment complex, with frequent check ins.

My apartment complex is like Munchkinland. The child:adult  ratio is probably like 3:1. We live smack in the middle of it, right next to the playground.

Sunshine is a social butterfly. She pretty much knows everyone. And I know most of the parents in the complex. I usually feel comfortable that she is safe. Until yesterday…

Sunshine came home close to her time to come in for the night. Again, she was not wearing her shoes (I have no idea why this child refuses to wear shoes). I instructed her to go back to her friend’s house and gather her belongings and return home.

So I wait on the porch…I wait some more…and then I had to go inside for a few minutes to do something pertaining to dinner.

I come back out to see Sunshine climbing up on one of the platforms of the playscape at the playground…WITH ROLLER SKATES ON HER FEET!!

I have no idea how I made it down to the playground that fast. I was in my “lounging clothes” (read a ratty tanktop and shorts, no bra and no shoes. That is probably where she gets the “no shoes” thing) and had to literally scream over the din of children playing to prevent her from going down the slide with roller skates on.

I made it just in time. She was about to put her roller skated foot on the sliding board when she turned and noticed me. Thank goodness.

Now, I am a nurse. I used to work in pediatrics a decade ago. I have seen kids with broken bones, long hospital stays because of injury, adults with traumatic brain injury. But even that knowledge isn’t needed to know that riding roller skates down a slide is a bad idea. Especially with no helmet or safety equipment.

When she (carefully) came down to semi solid ground, she got the full wrath of Mama.

“What were you thinking? Who’s skates are these? You were supposed to come right back! WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING?”

Sunshine: “I don’t know, Mama, it looked like fun”.

Be still, my pounding heart. I then gave her the usual Mama response: “do you know what could have happened?”

Sunshine: “Yes, Mama, I could have cracked my head open”.

Me: “You knew this and you still wanted to do this?”

Sunshine: “Yes, Mama. Because Lucy cracked her head open and she’s fine”.

Apparently Lucy is the rightful owner of the roller skates. Perhaps that is why she was allowing other children to partake in her “roller skates of doom”.

Walking back up to the apartment (after finally locating her shoes) Sunshine looks up at me and says: “I’m probably grounded aren’t I Mama” Me: “Oh yes you most certainly are”.

She also was treated to an earful of stories from me and my husband. Apparently he was a daredevil too, and once snapped both of the bones in his left forearm while jumping from a swing into a pile of leaves when he was 10. His arm broke his fall.

Hopefully, she learns from this, and I don’t catch her trying to prematurely grey my hair again.