Eli usually comes with to drop Grace off at school, and this morning, as I was busy putting the key into the door to lock it, Eli waves goodbye. And then loses his balance. But where is he standing? Right at the top of the stairs. He loses his balance, falls, knocks his head on the stoep on the way past, and then rolls down the stairs (there are three stairs) – tumble, tumble, tumble.

I got to watch this happen without any way to get to him on time and save him. I just had to pick him up, cuddle him and have a look at the ding he left in his head. Fortunately a little bit of magic mama’s milk and he was laughing and smiling again. My nerves on the other hand were shot for the morning.

Grace apparently decided tumbling down stairs is fun and took a fall down the stairs at school today, with just a few minor scratches to show that it happened. I don’t understand why Grace and Eli feel the need to keep the fall-score even.

I wonder if by default a second child just has worse (and better) parents. I think with Grace we would have just made sure that situation never happened by keeping her away from the stairs, whereas now I’m carrying Grace’s school bag, trying to get her out the door and lock up at the same time. It is just different. The flip side of that also counts though: Eli gets a lot more freedom to try things, mostly because we’ve been through a process with Grace which makes us more relaxed. Eli can climb up the jungle gym ladder and slide down the slide entirely independently, which is something that took Grace quite a while longer to master (Eli has been given more freedom to experiment, and also has a greater drive for this type of thing). More freedom just comes with its own set of consequences.