I am a lousy mom, example #4,872

I think I broke my baby. Yesterday was Hubby's company picnic, and Lil Joe was loving the moon bounce. "Mama, come in!" he called. So I joined him. "Mama, I jumpin'! You jump! Mama I fall! You fall!" And we jumped, and we flopped on the ground, and we got back up and jumped some more, fell some more. Over and over and over. "You wanna bounce some more?" I asked Lil Joe and the other children in the moon bounce. "YEAH!" they shouted. So I jumped high and they all bounced high in return. But when Lil Joe landed, his foot slipped in the indentation, and turned a little. And he cried and cried. I grabbed him up, and cradled him in the corner, and tried to make out whether he was hurting or just scared. And he cried some more. I looked at his foot and ankle, and poked and prodded and squeezed. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and he did not react to being touched as I progressed from instep, to sole, to heel, to ankle. He held his foot out to be kissed, as he has done so many times before, but instead of returning to playing, he curled his face into my chest and cried some more. We exited the bounce and went inside to eat. He sat in his chair as I brought him some ice-cream and a sippy cup of milk. He ate and he drank and was merry. And then we stood up. And he took two steps and lifted his foot, crying out. So I carried and cuddled him as we gathered our things at the end of the picnic. He fell asleep in the car and I tucked him into bed. He did not want to wake up this morning, so very early, so Hubby carried him to the car. "Do you want to walk?" Hubby asked our little man, who is usually so insistent on being self-propelled. "No," he said sadly, "You carry." I broke my baby boy.