During this Christmas holidays, me and my wife decided to go sledding for the very first time as a family. It was a very beautiful Christmas Eve and I got an idea that our almost 11 months old son is just old enough to be taken with us. We even bought a sled for a baby a couple of days ago, so we just have been waiting for the right time.
We started Anton’s sledding experience with just pulling him after us and he really enjoyed that. Naturally, as adventurous sports dad, I was aiming to go to a small hill nearby. After sliding down the hill for a couple of times successfully, it finally happened, there was a bump on the way and sled crashed. Anton fell from the sled on his face and got a wound on his cheek because snow was frozen and very hard.
The ‘thing’ that my wife experienced at that moment was quite spontaneous and primitive. She run a couple steps to take Anton into her arms and when she saw a scratch on Anton’s cheek she felt totally devastated. With tears she questioned me many times: ‘’What have we done?’’. That reaction just proves, how much she really loves our son and how deeply it hurts that we, Anton’s parents, could cause him harm.
Luckily, nothing awful happened, except from that small wound. The speed was not very huge, but obviously if could have been even less, because injury was born. As a father, I wasn’t as shocked as my wife. I guess in my opinion boys are boys and small wounds and injuries will happen anyway at some point. However, for some time it is important to remember that 11 months old boy is still a baby and should be handled with extra care. I guess I’ll have to wait until he is ready for some wilder games and activities.
-Marko