Baby Bumping

The Fellow is scared of children. Much like rabbits are scared of eagles and illegal hawkers are scared of the BMC van. His theories on what parents with children should do, and how children should be handled in general, are quite nightmarish at the worst and completely inhuman at other times. I for one am left with an open mouth and a ready punch whenever I hear one of his ‘You know what these parents should do…” lines.

Finally, yesterday, something occurred which had me shocked, tickled and amused, all at once. We were out on a drive, with the Fellow in the front passenger seat. The Fellow’s best friend was driving, and his daughter was in the back with her mum and me. All through the drive she kept jumping up and down, chattering away, wanting to climb into her dad’s lap while he drove. Suddenly, the Fellow turned around and picked her up, with the intention of taking her into his lap. I say intention because, never having swung a kid from the back seat to the front (ever), he didn’t realise the obstacles to be wary off – like the rear view mirror. And so while the kid was all happy to be going to the front seat, she also ended up bumping her head into the mirror!

Luckily for the Fellow the mirror was rounded and the girl not a cry baby. She only settled for an ‘uncle not nice’ about 10 mins after the bumping. The Fellow would probably have continued feeling all contrite and guilty if, after another 10 mins, she wouldn’t have asked to go sit with uncle again.

Apparently the head bumping led to some memory loss and damage to the judgment making cells of her brain.