Better than a sharp stick in the eye!

Henry is fascinated with sticks. He loves pencils, pens, sticks, and all things stick-shaped.

I don't like the idea of him carrying around pencils and other potentially eye-poking devices, but he insists. We give him unsharpened pencils to reduce the likelihood of injury, but I still worry about it.

Monday I was playing with Henry in the backyard, and naturally he had a stick in each hand. I was sitting on the grass, and he lunged at me and fell down. He was facing away from me, so I didn't see what happened, but he immediately wailed and then started screaming/crying. My first thought was that he'd finally poked himself in the eye with a stick. I was wrong...but close. He poked himself in the skin at the corner of the eye. Just MILIMETERS away from the actual eyeball. Even though he screamed and cried and almost hyper-ventilated, even though I had to hold him and stroke his hair throughout an entire Baby Einstein video before he would stop crying, even though he has a little scab in the corner of his eye, I was SO GLAD that he didn't poke himself IN the eye.
Look how close that injury is to his beautiful eye (double-click on the picture to see it bigger)! It really IS better than a sharp stick in the eye!