You know how it goes. In the kitchen, focused on making ratatouille, and there it is: a crash and a blood curdling scream. Okay, so not all of this is accurate. I was actually putting laundry away in the bedroom. The ratatouille was already cooked. My 9 month old baby was in the kitchen. She is now pulling her self up on everything. For the most part she is pretty stable. She pulled herself up onto the step stool in the kitchen. One of those metal, 2 step, types that fold up to fit between your fridge and the wall. Well I had it out and she was holding onto it. So why I was hanging up some clothes, wouldn't you know it, she pulls it over onto herself.
Next I hear it. Her first "true, mom I am really hurt" scream!!! Just in time for Halloween. It was the kind that send you sprinting across the house. The kind that makes you look like a track star as you hurdle across laundry baskets and toys. The kind that makes you want a drink. So I went to the fridge and pulled out a Coke.
She is ok. But there I was, in complete nurse mode. I was checking her pupils, feeling her head shape, doing vital signs, checking on her every 15 min after she fell asleep....etc.... My poor baby has a big bruise on her face and her cheek is swollen. I remember now why the age of 9 month to the age of 2 is not my favorite age. They get hurts all the time. They are just at the height that they run into every table corner or counter there is; they fall down; they hit their heads; they have various stages of bruising on their bodies. Which as a nurse, I know that these injury's could be consistent with child abuse. Not to make light of child abuse in any way shape or form but "officer, I promise she pulled the step stool onto herself!!!!"
By golly, I breaks my heart when little kids and babies get hurt. They don't realize cause and effect to the fullest yet. I cuss.... a lot.....when I smack my head on the car door or the cupboard that is left open, I cant imagine what my baby feels like when a huge metal thing falls on her head.
It is weird though, that the older my other kids have gotten, the less sympathetic I am to their injuries. If its not gushing blood or its not broken, then suck it up kid!!. It kind of makes me feel back saying that actually. I have noticed that after being a nurse all day long, it is hard for me to come home and want to be nurse. My husband is the worst. If he is sick then it is inevitable that I will hear the words "I think I am dying" come out of his mouth. I am so tired after work that I am usually like "that sucks honey". BTW I am not the only nurse that is this way. Ask any of your nursing buddies and they will tell you the same thing.
But tonight, I was nurse supremo! I took care of my baby with mad skill. She will have a wicked bruise but I was able to doctor up the baby and my two older girls thought that I was pretty cool.
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