Falling Down

Today Cambel fell over while he was trying to tell me something. He wasn't in motion, and there was nothing to trip over, so I am not sure how he managed to fall--hit the floor and then even bounce a little. Of course, I thought it was funny, and of course, Cambel did not. So I just hugged him real close so he wouldn't notice that I was laughing. 

It reminded me of when he was first learning to dress himself. He got his shirt stuck over his head and he couldn't see anything, and he refused to let me help him. He kept struggling to get it either over his head, or off his head, and in the midst of his fight he kept running into the wall. He actually ran into the wall of the hallway and then sort of bounced off of it into the other wall. And to make it even more hysterical he was verbalizing his frustration in made-up words that sounded a bit like cussing. Oh-and he was naked except for his underwear (and the shirt on his head of course). This went on for quite some time and despite my offers of assistance, he insisted on doing it himself (and it was a good thing, because I was laughing too hard to help anyway). 

Eventually he shut himself in my room, and when he reappeared several minutes later he was calm and dressed. 

So, the moral of this story is, laughing at your kid's misfortune sometimes helps them towards independence...or something like that.