saturday i went to take axel to the park and on the way out the door we had an "incident". as i was holding his leash in my left hand, and locking the door with the right, he apparently saw some people in our next door neighbor's driveway and decided he wanted to say hi (in the loudest, most terrifying-to-a-6-year-old way possible). in the process he jerked the leash right out of my hand, slamming my hand into the screen door. the whole side of my left hand, from the base of my pointer finger to my wrist, was sliced up, scraped up, and bruised up.

two days later i keep bumping it into things, because i'm a total clutz, and reminding myself how much it smarts, and deciding i need to concede to bryan that no, axel is not yet ready for the fancy retractable leash, and will only be allowed to use the regular old leash for the time being.