I think she has a death wish.

Madeline is kind of determined not to make it to her second birthday. She's had more near death experiences and trauma the past week than the past six months combined. It started when we went to Jessie's mission reunion. She was having a blast running around on the stage with all the other kids, and my biggest worry was that she would go exploring the church and find a hidden tunnel to the parking lot. Turns out I should have been more worried about her hidden aspirations to fly. She suddenly jumped off the stage and face planted onto the wooden floor. Jessie had seen the mischief in her eyes and ran to catch her, but arrived three seconds too late. But just in time, it turns out, to donate his best dress shirt as a rag for the torrent of blood gushing out her mouth. Now isn't that love? Anyway, after mopping up some of the carnage, we decided there was no chipped teeth, but she definitely bit her lip open in at least four places and bruised her upper gum quite badly. She was thoroughly traumatized, we all caused quite the scene, and it was a great night.

Madeline's lip is starting to not look like a scene from a horror film, but she has continued to be inexplicably clumsy. She randomly slid out of her booster seat at dinner, banged her head on the table, and sprawled onto the floor. She keeps running into tables, doors, and other hard objects. She banged her head on her crib while napping today, which she has never done before. She's reached new highs in tripping and falling. And I keep banging her with my elbow whenever I turn around suddenly. She jumps suddenly from stairs instead of walking down them normally. Did I mention she's also had a snot-nosed-hacking-cough-cold again through all this madness? Basically, I'm just counting our blessings that we haven't been to the ER yet, and counting the days until her birthday. At which point we'll hope the older and wiser thing kicks in pretty quickly. Heaven help us until then.