Stairs and James Don't Mix

What happens when a 16-month-old boy tries going down the deck stairs all by himself? He makes it down the first step okay but then stumbles down the second. As a result, the momentum carries him forward and he flings around like a rag doll all the rest of the way down until he finally comes to a stop when his face hits the concrete at the bottom.

Go ahead and call me a bad mom. I was. We were on the deck planting tomatoes and I thought James was right next to me digging in the dirt. When I looked over I was horrified when I saw him heading toward the stairs. I yelled at him to stop, knowing perfectly well he has never obeyed that command before, but praying he would this time. He didn't. He took one look back at me and thought it was a game and rushed forward. I ran to him as fast as I could only to see the inevitable happen. I'm just grateful we don't have more stairs because I know it could have been so much worse (this came the day after his little cousin Coleman broke his collar bone--so I KNOW it could have been worse).

This picture doesn't do it justice. He had a huge blue and purple knot at the top of his head and bloody scrapes all down the side. I tried to clean it up and added some Neosporin to it (thus the shine). It always amazes me how fast kids heal. Today it's already looking better. He's still got a huge blue knot and a few bad cuts on his face and a few scraped up knuckles on his hands, but as you can see, he thoroughly enjoyed his yogurt this morning and is doing just fine.

Short from duct taping the bib to him, I'm at a loss as to how to keep a bib on this kid. He pulls it off as fast as I get it on.