You know how the story goes… “One fell off and bumped its head. Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said. ‘No more monkeys jumping on the bed!'”.

So three weeks ago, Elena took Emma to “The Little Gym” and Emma was mesmerized by another girl who was hanging from a parallel bar by her hands. So much so that she decided she would give it a try. From that day forward Emma has been working hard to build her upper body strength by hanging from our refrigerator door handles, our kitchen counter-top, or anything else that she could get her hands on and subsequently lift her feet off the ground. Elena and I realized quickly that we were on borrowed time and as of last week I started to fully close her bedroom door when I put her to bed at night. Our fear being that she would attempt a great crib escape with her new found ability.

Needless to say, last night at around 10:00 PM, the thump we heard justified our concerns. Emma had managed to pull herself up and over the top of her crib and make a death-defying leap in total darkness onto the floor of her room. We raced to her side and examined her head and body for any obvious damage. By our estimation Emma had survived her brush with death unscathed. We gave her plenty of hugs and kisses and told her that she is not allowed to jump out of her crib. We returned her to bed and made sure that when she woke-up in the morning that we would not dally, as she is somewhat impatient and might try to throw herself over the top again should we not immediately appear before her.

When this morning came and Emma woke up, Elena rushed to the room to get her. Emma’s leg was already straddling the safety barrier. A few minutes later Elena came to wake me, a sense of urgency in her tone. Emma had apparently injured her leg from the previous nights fall. I jumped out of bed and placed Emma on the floor and asked her to walk for me. She took one step and collapsed to the ground as soon as she put weight on her left foot. She then uttered the word “booboo”. My heart sank and Elena and I prepared to take Emma to the hospital.

After a few hours of examination and X-Rays, it was determined that Emma had not broken anything. The Doctor was not sure where the injury occurred (foot, knee, leg, hip) but diagnosed her with a contusion. By this time Emma was walking better (i.e. she was not collapsing with each alternating step) which made an accurate diagnosis difficult. We took her home and she spent the rest of the day playing. Her walking had improved somewhat, although a limp was still evident. I imagine she learned how to bare her weight to accommodate her new injury. Toward the end of the day it was apparent that her foot had sustained the injury from the fall as slight swelling could be observed. Tomorrow we will try to wrap it during the day so that it can be somewhat immobilized. There is no chance that we will be able to get Emma to stay off of it so a wrap is the best we could do. Anyway, Elena is sleeping with Emma on an inflatable mattress tonight, and tomorrow we are going to see if we can pick-up a toddler bed. The crib, for now is off limits.