Bruised Alter-Ego

As soon as Calvin became a toddler, it became apparent that I would never be able to go through a day without tripping over something - frequently, the toddler himself. Neither would I be able to walk a straight line without obstruction. It became even more fun when I was hugely pregnant and the obstacles would come up beneath me, unseen.

By now, four years later, I am quite used to small toys, small piles of laundry or books or stuffed animals, and small boys being beneath my feet or behind my legs at any given moment. I am becoming more adept, but no less annoyed, at having to readjust my path or catch myself in a stumble or console the boy over whom I tumbled. It's part of my life as mom.

But now I have a second life - my super identity as Master's Student At A Really Smart Historic Liberal Arts College.

By the time I drive the hour it takes to get there - listening to my music and thinking my own thoughts without having to referee backseat affairs or ask that someone please give the baby his pacifier because I can't reach from the driver's seat - I have changed from my mild-mannered yet slightly flustered mother self to my smart and savvy back-at-school-to-discuss-great-literature self. I'm almost cool, and definitely mostly have it together.

By the time I step out onto the old cobblestone sidewalks of campus and walk through the thick stone walls of a building built in the late 18th century, I feel entirely different, thinking deep thoughts about western civilization, and completely forgetting that there's a place where most of the time I can't walk a straight line, let alone accomplish anything that resembles any kind of civilization.

Yep, I feel good. A Budding Intellectual. Sophisticated, even. (And in such an elevated state of mind that I'm totally able to ignore the panel pants I'm still wearing because I refuse to buy jeans one size larger but can't fit into the pants I wore pre-preg even though I weigh what I did pre-preg...)

I buy my dinner at the charming basement coffee shop, prop it on top of my stack of books, grab my fountain drink in the other hand and head outside and up the charming historic cobbled steps to the common area where the rest of the student body is settling in at tables and benches to enjoy dinner al fresco.

Then I, Code Yellow the super student, trip on the second step going up. No, OK, it's not just a trip. It's a certified fall that started with a trip. Genuine clutz all over it.

My books go flying up the stairs, but not before the top of my drink pops off and the bottom of the cup bursts out and splashes Pepsi all over the books. And my face. My knee hits the next step up and then my arm gets pinned beneath the books and my dinner.

I vaguely hear a voice, one that must be coming from the person who owns the feet that I can see rushing toward me at my eye level on the top step..."Oh my gosh! Is she OK?!"

I stand up and he gives me my topless and bottomless Pepsi cup and helps me gather my books while I say thanks and try not to think about the Pepsi dripping from the end of my nose or look at my extremely painful elbow, which I know must be gushing blood onto my panel pants that now have a cobblestone scrape on the outside and a very bruised knee on the inside.

I shuffle across the common area, through the rest of the students, toward the building I was headed to in the first place and spend my dinner hour wiping sticky soda from my face and books and trying to get my elbow to stop bleeding before my next class starts. And yes, I cry a little because I'm not sure what is more painful - the elbow and knee, or my wounded pride.

Wouldn't you know that my mom self decided at the last minute to take the band-aids out of her purse since she wasn't taking any accident prone children along today? And doesn't it just figure that the guy who helped me up is in my next class, so I get to see him every school day now?

The next day, Henry kisses my still oozing elbow after asking with genuine alarm what happened. My little boy is sincerely concerned when I tell him I fell down at school, and he's using the only super power he knows to make me feel better.

And I realize, with some relief, that luckily, I'm not fooling anyone.