My (not so) proud parenting moment

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

You read about them all the time...mom accidentally leaves baby in the car, dad loses track of toddler in the grocery store, baby eats something they shouldn't which involves either a trip to the ER or a call to poison control, etc.  I'm sure some parents are perfect (...riiiiiiight) and have never had a really stupid and potentially dangerous oops moment with their precious cargo that they really wish they could do over.  I had one of those moments on Sunday.  Don't worry, it doesn't have anything to do with hot cars or accidentally ingested toxic substances.

I was in the bathroom getting ready to go to the grocery store with B.  The bathroom is one of those places that I don't really like him to be, but if I am in there, I would rather have him be in my sight than out of my site and doing potentially dangerous things.  Anyways, he was in the bathroom, doing one of his favorite things...watching ABC Mouse alphabet songs.  Seriously, this kid knows half of those songs by heart.  If you haven't downloaded the app to your iPhone or other "i" device, you should.  It may help get you out of a jam and keep your baby occupied while you stay sane on one many occasions.  Basically, there is an extremely catchy 2ish minute song for each letter of the alphabet.  At the end of listening to a song, you get 1-3 tickets towards "purchasing" another song.  You start with A, B, and C, and then go from there.  We have all of the letters on the iPad and an extra 300 or so tickets...so yeah...he loves those songs.

Back to the bad parenting moment.  Little B was sitting on the bathroom rug, listening to the N song (or "nee, nee," as he likes to call it).  I was trying to put my rats nest of hair into a my usual boring bun.  Well, the song ended, he collected his tickets, and then he wanted me to pick him another song, since he hasn't quite mastered the fact that you can only touch one part of the iPad screen at a time in order to select something.  He stood up, picked up the iPad and started carrying it over to me, when he lost his grip and dropped the heavy generation 2 iPad on his left big toe and my right pinky toe.

OUCH!  We both whelped in pain, but I thought he got me much worse than he got himself.  He started crying pretty hard, though.  I scooped him up, kissed him, and did what I usually do, try to downplay the injury and tell him that he is ok.  He seemed pretty upset so we left the bathroom and I tried to find a distraction in a different room.  I got one of his toys and started playing with him, but he was having none of my distraction.  He was really upset so we went back into the bathroom and I set him on the bench to take a look.  Good thing I did.

There was blood...EVERYWHERE.  It was all over my white (of course I was wearing white) shorts, navy white/blue striped tank top, and it was running down my leg.  It was on the rug, on the floor, and even on the wall.  OMG I was horrified.  First at the fact of how much blood there was and secondly that it had taken me so long to notice that he was bleeding so badly.  I was shaking, but trying to not make it seem like I was upset so that he wouldn't get more upset.

I got a wet washcloth and wiped his poor little big toe, which was extremely difficult because it hurt him, I'm sure.  I squeezed on some antibiotic cream and put a bandage on him.  Poor thing.  Of course we had plans to go to the water park later that day, but wouldn't be able to now with this injury.  Stupid Mommy!!!

The rest of that day, he seemed ok.  He was walking running around with no issue and didn't seem to be in any pain.  Then came the night, which was a different story.  He was up.  All.  Night.  Literally.  The kid was so upset and did not sleep from 12-4 AM.  We were thinking that he was getting sick, but it turns out that it was his toe that was bothering him because he kept trying to pull off his bandage.  We gave him some infant acetaminophen and he finally fell asleep for a few hours.  Everyone in our house spent their Monday in a sleepy, groggy, foggy, haze.

The next day...his toenail fell off.  UGH.  I knew that it was bothering him so I kept slathering on the antibiotic cream and tried to keep a sock on him even though it was almost 90 degrees out.  I called the doctor that morning to see if they thought that we should bring him in.  She explained that we were doing everything right and to monitor it for excessive redness, warmth, or puss, which might indicate an infection.

My poor baby.  There is one thing that almost all mommies have in common, which is that they never want their babies to feel pain.  I would much rather have the pain transferred to me.  I have no idea how bad it hurts him because he can't tell me yet so I can only imagine.  I know that this is small potatoes compared to other illnesses/injuries that children get, but it is still pain that my child is experiencing that I wish I could take away.  I can't imagine the pain that a mother or father would feel knowing that their child was battling cancer or some other type of illness.  I see stories like that on the news, which used to bother me before I had B, but now I get very teary.

The moral of this story is that I need to be more careful when B is watching is ABC Mouse videos and that I need to pay attention when he injures himself to make sure that his injury isn't worse than I thought.  I am still working on getting this whole parenting thing down.  I am definitely not perfect.  No one is (even if they think that they are).  We all make mistakes, but the difference between making a mistake that affects you and making a mistake that affects your child can be huge.  We never want our children to pay for our own stupid mistakes.

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3 Comments »

3 Responses to “My (not so) proud parenting moment”

  1. Happens to the best of us. Look at it this way: you're on top of it and doing everything right. You're not neglecting or ignoring. And toes (and fingers) have SO many nerve endings, it's likely to be sensitive for a while. The fact he is feeling it is a good thing (even if it doesn't seem like it). Hang in there. He will heal. And you can tell him when he's older about the time he dropped the iPad on you both. ;)

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  2. Im so sorry this happened and I know it can be upsetting, but momma you have got to give yourself a break!! Even if we could protect our children from every single thing, we shouldn't. Accidents happen. Please give yourself some grace!

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  3. Aww, poor guy! It sounds like you more than made up for the accident by doing everything right afterwards so don't be too hard on yourself.

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