So, once again, I have taken myself out of the running for 2006 Mother of the Year. Took me until April this time, but at least I did it in grand style.

First, yesterday afternoon, Jacob took a long nap and I changed his diaper, without incident. No crying, no squirming, no whimpering - from either of us. An hour or so later, he started whimpering and patting the front of his diaper, but not like he was terribly upset - just sort of whiny, which could be for any of a number of reasons, seeing as how we're traveling and he's teething and he's 20 months old and the sky is blue and so on. So, we went out and had a general failure of an evening with Grandma - not that it was a bad evening, it was just a series of "Let's do this," followed by, "It's closed," or, "It's too far away," or, "The kids don't want to."

Got home, and my mother-in-law bathed the beasts. Afterward, she said that he seemed a little uncomfortable and did I want to check him out? So I did - and found a tiny, head-of-a-pin-sized piece of baby wipe tucked into a particularly sensitive area, and as a result the entire area and then some was all red and inflamed and miserable. Poor little guy, my heart aches for him. He still goes willingly for a diaper change, but each time I have to attack him thoroughly with a wipe and then smother him in antibiotic ointment, so by the end he is anything but willing.

So, that's sad and pathetic, and I feel guilty about that.

Then, this evening, Emily and I were in the dining room and he was in the living room, just a few feet apart. I was talking to Emily but could hear this odd clink-clink-clink sound. It took a few seconds for it to filter into my consciousness that it was the sound of small things being thrown down the stairs. So just as I turned to investigate, I hear BANG-BANG-CLUNK-BANG-CLUNK, and sure enough, after throwing small wooden pegs (my mother-in-law has a pegboard with roughly 2-inch-tall wooden pegs, to play Chinese checkers), he decided to toss himself down the stairs as well. The upper 2 flights of stairs here are carpeted, but the lower one is hard wood, so my mother-in-law had put a heavy wooden bench across the top of the stairs, meant to be a reminder not an actual blocking agent. I think Jacob was leaning on this while tossing pegs to their death, and he nudged it just close enough to the stairs. Only 7 steps, though does the word "only" EVER apply when it's your kid lemming-ing down the stairs??

So he ended up with a huge, raised, purple welt on his forehead, poor baby boy. We snuggled with an ice pack and watched Dora, and he seemed well enough not to go to the ER, but still. Such a preventable injury, and yet not.

And in my rush to get the ice pack and settle down, I somehow flipped the bin of ice cubes off onto the floor, and I completely forgot about it, until, hours later, once he was asleep and I was ready for a good strong dose of headache meds, I wandered into the kitchen and got a good sockful of really cold water. And another one when I found another little puddle on my way to the light switch. And one more on my way to the drawer where the towels are.

So, I am not exhausted and feeling guilty. What a fabulous combination. I'm going to go collapse on the couch and try to pacify myself with Chunky Monkey.