I feel the need, the need for speed....

Monkey wipes out a fair amount on the playground. Not because she is a klutz, but because she is a daredevil. She outruns kids twice her age....and has a seemingly endless reservoir of energy to hurtle from one side of the playground to the other. Even after a full day of school! (and did you know that it is virtually impossible to catch a screaming, energetic, running toddler while in heels or any shoe other than sneakers? all my "pretty" shoes are lonely....)

When she is on a set of steps, she'll yell "jump" and fling herself off into space. When you push her on the swing she alternates between "faster!" and "higher!" When we run on the sidewalk (as she holds my hand, under the new regime) she exhorts you to go "faster faster higher" as if the two words are interchangeable. She feels the need, the need for speed.

And, under the law of averages, she wipes out a lot. Again, not because she is a klutz, but because she runs and jumps and kamikazes so many times that eventually, one of her efforts to land that dismount is going to go astray.

Last night was one such night. She clambered on top of a cement toad with a sprinkler on its back....and rolled off. Hitting all the cement bumps of the toad's back, sides, and legs before hitting the ground and rolling into a puddle of standing water and sand.

I ran to get her, to comfort her and assess the damage. And, while she was littered with small cuts, scrapes, and swollen bruises (those nice little white welts you get on your skin before the real purple bruise shows...), with blood dribbling down her neck from a cut on her chin, and liberally covered in wet, filthy sand, she was OK! One minute later she was laughing again, running across the playground and having a grand old time.

Four hours later I was in the bathtub, cleaning off the grime from the day, including a layer of sand that had gotten inside my dress and my bra (shudder) and clung to my skin all night long. Ew.