“Some people hit me with a bat”

I could also title this post “Crimes against the second child.” On Friday, we took all four kids to the park with Sam’s new t-ball set. Now, let me state for the record that this is a t-ball set for a toddler, at most a preschooler. Not for an eight year old. But of course, everyone wanted a turn with the bat – and unfortunately, Sam is short, and apparently it’s easy to not realize that he’s standing right next to where you are swinging the bat if you are Sarah. Sarah is my younger step daughter, older than Jess and Sam (Lilli is 10, Sarah is 8, Jess is 6 and Sam is two and a half). And she swung, hit the ball, and then hit my baby in the face. Hard. With a bat. The poor kid has a bloody scrape on his cheekbone and a bruise extending up under his eye. And I’m still bitter about it – I don’t think Sarah fully realized what she did. Obviously, she would NEVER have hurt him intentionally, but still – SHE HIT HIM IN THE FACE WITH A BAT. And wasn’t all that upset about it… I’m pretty sure that if she had shown some serious remorse, I’d have forgiven her a lot faster… but she kind of breezed over it, so I’m still mad.

Sam adores Sarah – and when I asked him later that day what happened to his face, he looked at me and explained that “some people hit me with a bat.” Some people – that’s his catch phrase for people who do things wrong – some people hide his toys when he can’t find them, some people woke him up when he was sleeping. I don’t know where he got it, but it’s his little phrase that he uses all the time. But in this instance, it makes him sound like a victim of gang violence.

I was thinking about second children – because my boy is watching his third half hour show, while I’m vacuuming and folding laundry (and blogging, apparently). And I would NEVER have let Jess sit and just watch television… but then I did the math and figured out that I’ve nursed Sam TWO YEARS longer than Jessie. Jess stopped at eight months on her own, and Sam will be three in April. So I don’t feel that guilty about a little extra television :-).