Her First Shiner

Still without camera (Rob will take some shots with his iPhone tomorrow), I was unable to capture the painful sight of a little girl with a bruised left eye. Nina and I took her to the Tuesday night hula hoop group that gathers on the lawn between our house and the Union Project which amused her greatly. There were just as many young children as adults, and Buggy was mesmerized by the sea of hoopers with colorful metallic-taped - and some with lights! - hula hoops. More than those, though, she was engrossed in a rock hunt, plucking little pebbles from the dirt caked in the sidewalk. Rocks have recently become a big love of hers that started on a walk we took a month ago to the zoo: on one stretch of the road large rocks are placed on the grass between the sidewalk and street and it was on this walk that she needed to visit each individual rock and touch it gently, saying, "Hi, rock!" Anyway, tonight she was happy to dig up rocks and share with Nina and me her findings - a tricky task given the obstacle of the hoops. At one point Nina didn't see her coming and Buggy caught an eyeful. Bad. I couldn't tell in the low light just how or where she'd been hit, but I scooped her up and brought her back home to Rob. When I returned a little while later after having taken Nina back home, I saw a that the hoop had, indeed, clocked her square in the peeper, or just below, and there was plenty of redness and swelling. I dabbed a little arnica ointment on it over her howls, hoping that it would reduce the puffiness enough to keep her out of the state's custody. I worry a little about bringing her to Music Together tomorrow morning; she's always the most beat-up looking of the tots there, as she won't leave her scabs alone so little wounds not only don't heal quickly but are made worse by her picking. Besides, how credible a story is getting hit by a hula hoop?