Poor Noah. This really hasn't been his day. First on Thursday morning was the Great Bloody Lip Popsicle Incident of 2012 and then Thursday evening was the Terrifying Goose Egg Raising of 2012.
While getting the kids ready for their baths, everyone hangs out in my and Dylan's room. We clean Noah's (usually) poopy diaper, get them undressed and herded into the tub. Noelle gets silly in the evening and tonight was no exception. She likes to basically kick her legs out and fall backward. We have a Queen sized bed and two large children so space gets tight and have had many a near miss; I should probably start bringing the Near Miss Root Cause/Corrective Action Form home from work. Anyway, Noah is lying back on the bed and I'm just getting his diaper undone to wipe him down when WHAM! The back of Noelle's head slams into his forehead. All of her weight plus the force of her jump concentrated on the center of his head.
The reaction was loud and immediate and I thanked God in that second that he could cry. Noelle is crying as it hurt her too, Noah is wailing in pain and I sprint down the stairs to grab the ice packs, leaving Dylan to comfort our injured children. Racing back up the stairs, I throw one at Noelle, scoop Noah up to apply the ice and rock him panicking the whole time, praying as hard as I can in my head "Please don't die baby, please don't die." (Morbid? Overreacting? Yes but I've read The Hunger Games and have an overactive imagination to begin with so let the good times roll.) Noah's crying and shaking, Noelle is crying, Dylan's white as a sweet and I'm trying to comfort Noah and not lash out at Noelle.
We were both trying to keep ourselves under control, she had a bump and was scared too. And it was hard. Hard not to yell at her for her carelessness. Hard not to yell when it was clearly an accident. Hard to not scare her by lashing out and cutting her with our words. But we did it. Some of our fear leaked out but not the words that I would regret. Not the words that would wound. Not the words that she would carry with her the rest of her life. We did tell her that she could have seriously hurt herself and her brother. We told her that there was a very good reason why we say not to do something. But we also told her that we knew that it was an accident, that she wasn't trying to hurt anyone, that she was being the silly, goofy, funny little girl that she always has been and that we love her very much.
We got off lucky; Noah has a big goose egg on his head that nicely complements the cut lip from earlier. Noelle has a bump that is tender but isn't as visible as it's under her hair. But after the kids were in bed, I confessed my thoughts to Dylan, that if something horrible had happened to Noah, I didn't know if I would ever be able to not resent her, to not blame her in some way. I don't like feeling like that. I really didn't like thinking that but it was there. Noah's eyes seemed a bit dilated so to be safe, Dylan will stay with him tomorrow to observe him. I'm sitting here typing with the baby monitor on, the one we haven't used at night in ages as the 'what if' scenarios play tag in my mind. My poor poor little boy. He's had such a rough day, it just doesn't seem fair that this all happens to him in one 24-hour period.
Hm, maybe the Mayans are right after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Do or do not. There is no try.