“Use your head for more than a hat rack.”

When I was growing up I had this bf (Trisha) whose Dad would scream say “Use your head for more than a hat rack!”  Usually, it would just crack us the hell up, which quite possibly made him more mad.

Anywho, I pinky swear I have never told my daughter this.  However, she is very successful in fulfilling the mission set forth by Trisha’s Dad over 20 years ago.

Exhibit A (8 months old):

It’s right there under Shawn’s cheek, a reddish purple mark.  It looks like nothing, but that “nothing” resulted in a white indented scar in her forehead, which appears to be with us for the long haul.  This did not happen on my watch, and I don’t think I ever even got the full story.

Exhibit B (3.5 years old): 

Oh yeah.  Do you like that?  I think there were a total of 14 stitches after all was said and done.  This happened one night approximately 1 minute after we had put them to bed.  Alivia and Lainey share a bedroom, and they have bunk bed shaped like a T.  Does that make sense?  It has a dresser and a desk at the bottom, and the bottom bed comes out like a T under the top bunk.  Allegedly, Alivia was leaning over her rail to “talk” to Lainey and she flipped over it, hitting her head on Lainey’s rail.  Good times.  Did you notice she’s sticking her tongue out in both those pictures?  It’s almost like she doesn’t even care!

She learned her lesson though, right?  Wrong.  Numerous times we have walked into their room to find Alivia leaning over the rail.  Oh, and get this!  Last night Shawn took the rails off Lainey’s bottom bunk, because the bed is basically on the ground and she really doesn’t need them anymore.  After the rails were off, Alivia went bat shit crazy because Shawn wouldn’t take the rails off her top bunk!  Oh, and this all happened on the same day as Exhibit C, which I’m about to show you. 

So, Lainey and I are at McDonald’s yesterday and my cell phone rings.  It was a number I didn’t recognize and I thought maybe it was Publisher’s Clearing House, so I answered it:

 

Me:  “Hello?”

Dude:  “Hey Tami?  This is Mr. World’s-best-principal.”

(He didn’t really call himself that, but I thought I would, since he gets major bonus points for calling me “Tami” and not “Mrs. Roth.”  Apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks, don’t tell him I said that though!)

Me:  “Um, yeah.  I’m trying to finish my Big Mac, what do you want?”

Principal:  “I have Alivia here with me and she took a pretty good fall on the playground and she has a good-sized lump.”

Me:  “Define good-sized.  Like, do I have time to finish eating?  Okaaaay.”

Principal:  “We’ve got an icepack on it, and I don’t think she has a concussion.  Can you talk to her for a minute?”

Me:  I’m close by, so I’ll come over and look at it after I order a McFlurry.”

 

So, I get over there (after a 5 minute conversation with Lainey about how she can NOT mention to Alivia that we were at McDonald’s), and I think I may have said “Holy Shit!” when I walked in the office.

I still can’t figure out how it happened.  She claims she was on a swing and she was “leaning back.”  She also claims there was “ice” involved.  My guess is she flipped backwards out of the swing and hit her head on a patch of ice.  I think this child needs to wear a helmet.

It did look 100% better after school, so don’t go thinking I’m exaggerating when you see this picture. 

Exhibit C:

Moral of the story:  In my opinion, using your head for a hat rack isn’t such a bad idea after all.  It beats the hell out of using it for a landing strip.