There's nothing that makes you feel like a worse parent than watching your child fall down stairs, fully expecting that you will have been there to catch her.
Iris and I had a miscommunication on our stairs, due to my lack of full attention on her.
I did my best not to panic as I picked her up by her left thigh (I did catch her, but not before she hit the stairs chin-first). When I try not to panic I do the same thing: "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God... Okay, Okay, Okay...." and try to assess how much of an emergency it is (do I call 911? do we go to the emergency room?). When I saw her face her mouth was starting to bleed but I didn't see any other bumps on her head. I had the words of our neurologist (or cardiologist?) going through my mind: The threshold of taking her to the emergency room is lower than for other children because her blood vessels are more fragile. Bumps on the head should be taken especially seriously because she is at higher risk for hemorrhage.
As I tried to calm her down and explain to her that we might need to go on a car ride, she settled down surprisingly quickly. She really wanted her daddy who, unfortunately for all of us, had just left for two nights on a business trip. I gave her some Tylenol through the undamaged side of her mouth and was able to see that she didn't seem to have hit her head. The only visible damage was to her lip and her lip was the only place she said hurt. All her teeth were in tact and no damage to her tongue or sides of the mouth. She did seem mad at me, that's for sure, but she wasn't acting differently (aside from being in pain). I tried calling Evan (several times) and finally got through. He was calm about it (and not at all mad at me for letting Iris fall down the stairs), and we decided that she probably didn't need to go to the emergency room.
It was getting close to bedtime so I got her a bottle and we went upstairs to sleep. After she spent some time looking at her lip in the mirror, she went to sleep. The night started off quietly but didn't stay that way. She cried for a long time for her daddy and seemed to be in some kind of gut pain, maybe from the lentils I gave her for dinner (?). But after a while she fell asleep again.
I stayed home from work and she stayed home from school on Monday so I could keep an eye on her. I quickly realized that she wasn't going to let anything near her mouth, except a bottle. After a while I decided that I was going to have to try to reason with her instead of reward her with prizes for letting me put stuff in her mouth.
I explained to her that I wanted to touch the undamaged side of her mouth and she let me do that. I asked if it hurt? "No," she said. Then I touched some puffy snacks to the side of my mouth and told her that I wanted to try it on her. She let me, and again, it didn't hurt. She happily ate a lot of puffy snacks, which have basically zero calories, but at least she ate something. That was the extent of her eating until the late afternoon (despite several other attempts), when I was able to get her to eat some buttered pasta and take some Tylenol, with the help of "Bubble Guppies."
Thankfully, mouth wounds heal quickly so I'm hoping that today will be better than yesterday. I'm still not ready to send her back to school since she's not really eating or drinking without extra convincing.
Lessons learned: I'm glad that I was the negligent parent in this situation because I think I would have had a very hard time forgiving Evan for such a gaffe. The truth is that I'm not having the easiest time forgiving myself, either, but I've had a good reminder that accidents happen to everyone and kids are very, very resilient.
Iris has been saying, "I'm really brave," and she is, even if it's because we force her to be because of our medical treatments or our mistakes that turn into boo-boos. She's also one of the least risk-averse people I know.
Iris and I had a miscommunication on our stairs, due to my lack of full attention on her.
I did my best not to panic as I picked her up by her left thigh (I did catch her, but not before she hit the stairs chin-first). When I try not to panic I do the same thing: "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God... Okay, Okay, Okay...." and try to assess how much of an emergency it is (do I call 911? do we go to the emergency room?). When I saw her face her mouth was starting to bleed but I didn't see any other bumps on her head. I had the words of our neurologist (or cardiologist?) going through my mind: The threshold of taking her to the emergency room is lower than for other children because her blood vessels are more fragile. Bumps on the head should be taken especially seriously because she is at higher risk for hemorrhage.
As I tried to calm her down and explain to her that we might need to go on a car ride, she settled down surprisingly quickly. She really wanted her daddy who, unfortunately for all of us, had just left for two nights on a business trip. I gave her some Tylenol through the undamaged side of her mouth and was able to see that she didn't seem to have hit her head. The only visible damage was to her lip and her lip was the only place she said hurt. All her teeth were in tact and no damage to her tongue or sides of the mouth. She did seem mad at me, that's for sure, but she wasn't acting differently (aside from being in pain). I tried calling Evan (several times) and finally got through. He was calm about it (and not at all mad at me for letting Iris fall down the stairs), and we decided that she probably didn't need to go to the emergency room.
It was getting close to bedtime so I got her a bottle and we went upstairs to sleep. After she spent some time looking at her lip in the mirror, she went to sleep. The night started off quietly but didn't stay that way. She cried for a long time for her daddy and seemed to be in some kind of gut pain, maybe from the lentils I gave her for dinner (?). But after a while she fell asleep again.
I stayed home from work and she stayed home from school on Monday so I could keep an eye on her. I quickly realized that she wasn't going to let anything near her mouth, except a bottle. After a while I decided that I was going to have to try to reason with her instead of reward her with prizes for letting me put stuff in her mouth.
I explained to her that I wanted to touch the undamaged side of her mouth and she let me do that. I asked if it hurt? "No," she said. Then I touched some puffy snacks to the side of my mouth and told her that I wanted to try it on her. She let me, and again, it didn't hurt. She happily ate a lot of puffy snacks, which have basically zero calories, but at least she ate something. That was the extent of her eating until the late afternoon (despite several other attempts), when I was able to get her to eat some buttered pasta and take some Tylenol, with the help of "Bubble Guppies."
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| This photo doesn't do it justice. |
Thankfully, mouth wounds heal quickly so I'm hoping that today will be better than yesterday. I'm still not ready to send her back to school since she's not really eating or drinking without extra convincing.
Lessons learned: I'm glad that I was the negligent parent in this situation because I think I would have had a very hard time forgiving Evan for such a gaffe. The truth is that I'm not having the easiest time forgiving myself, either, but I've had a good reminder that accidents happen to everyone and kids are very, very resilient.
Iris has been saying, "I'm really brave," and she is, even if it's because we force her to be because of our medical treatments or our mistakes that turn into boo-boos. She's also one of the least risk-averse people I know.