Life gives us lessons. We, as parents, wait patiently for the lessons to happen (both for us, the parents, and for our wee ones). Last week, we had the perfect injury.

Big lip!

Looks even worse this way!

But she is still smiling.

Wait…you don’t know what a “perfect injury” is? That means you don’t have children. Or that you haven’t had your own perfect bruising.

The perfect injury is just enough to scare you, just enough to teach you how gravity feels, just enough to provide a concrete (pun intended) example of what is too fast or too much. Our perfect injury involved a tricycle moving a little bit too fast. Hello GRAVITY with a bit of SPEED.

When it happened, I picked her up immediately. There was a lot of blood. So I stuck my fingers into her mouth to check her teeth. They were good. So we walked home.

It was a long three blocks but we made it back home, got some ice, and continued the loving care. Within two days, the swelling was gone and now you can’t even tell.

This is the “what?!?” face

We know and we remember. These lessons are better than a million reminders from Mama or Papa to “be careful”. This is the perfect injury: it teaches you a lesson.