Saturday, 29 November 2008
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From the Momaroo Vault: The Unthinkable Happened To Me!
Editor's Note: Over the holiday weekend we'll be featuring one post a day from the Momaroo Vault (aka archives
). 
by Mama Koala
I've been enjoying my subscription to Parents magazine, and there's a tiny section in every issue titled "It Happened To Me!" that highlights a personal story sent in by a reader. The stories are usually about incidents that humble you as a parent and make you realize that you're not perfect.
Well, it happened to me on Sunday. I was at church enjoying refreshments after service, when someone pulled out a camera and wanted to take pictures of my 16-month-old daughter BJ and her friend (a few months younger).
Since the young toddlers weren't cooperating, his mom and I both picked up our babies so that we could create a Kodak moment. I wanted my daughter to face the camera, so I was in the middle of turning her around, when all of a sudden she was no longer in my arms. I watched in horror (boy, one second can really feel like a lifetime!) as she slipped out of my grip and fell flat on her face.
She was crying hysterically when I scooped her up, and I took a quick glance to make sure she was okay. Initially, it looked like she might have escaped any real injuries, but moments later I saw the blood gathering inside her mouth. I had a sudden flashback to when my mom told me that my brother had fallen with his tongue between his teeth and needed stitches to put it back together. Thankfully, my daughter's tongue looked fine (whew!). She had banged her chin, and her four bottom teeth had cut into her lower lip. She didn't need medical attention, but her lip was swollen, and I could see that she was in a lot of pain.
She was still crying when I put her into the car seat, and seven minutes later when I was merging onto the highway. At this point, I started crying too. So many thoughts rushed through my mind, but the worst was:
WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU??
I was brought back to last year when BJ was just an infant learning to sit up. She was on our bed, and I stepped away to grab something from the dresser. In those few seconds, she pushed herself forward and went tumbling off the bed. I remember how much I cried after, and wanted to deny that it ever happened. I also remember finding comfort in stories I read online from other moms who experienced the same thing. That time, it was a soft landing and she didn't get hurt. But this time, she was bleeding, and I've never seen so much of her blood before. It was her first real cut, and it was completely my fault.
Knowing that my child was in pain because of something I had done was one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced so far as amother (or just in general!). However,it did teach me to be more careful when I'm holding a child in my arms. I probably won't be trying to hold her while pushing the stroller and reaching for my drink anymore... not for a while anyway ;)
Can you remember the last time you said "it happened to me"?
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Comments (134)
Good post! Thank you, and welcome!!!!
When I read this post I got a little teary eyed! It brought back a memory of when I was watching my baby brother. I looked away for a couple of seconds and then all of a sudden he comes screaming towards me, blood dripping down his face. He bumped into the corner of some sharp surface and cut his face, right above his eye. He ended up needing 7 stiches. I felt so bad!! He's 18 now and still has a gangster cut above his eye. Everytime I see it I feel a lil guilty.
*hugs*
I think it happens to everyone.
I remember looking back in some albums and I noticed that I had a big scab at one corner of forehead as a baby. My mom told me that I crawled over her legs and fell off the bed, leaving a big boo-boo.
=P
I was checked out and all I had to show for it are pictures of me as a baby with a big scab.
*hugs*
I hope you feel better.
Things like this happens.
Just wanted to say that unfortunately a bloody lip/bloody chin is a totally normal part of childhood! All 3 of my kids have had this happen to them, most recently my 3 year old running inside one of those kid play places, tripped and had her teeth go into her lip. It looks a lot scarier than it is!
You sound like a great mama to me
Well I'm not a parent yet...
But my mom once slipped on the ice in front of our house, and I, being a baby at the time, flew out of her arms.
Fortunately, I landed on my butt, so nothing major happened to me. But scary for my mom anyway.
Awww come on, you are making me all misty eyed! No seriously, I have 5 younger brothers and sisters, and when they were really little, seeing them get hurt would HURT ME! But I guess for a parent or an older sibling, it is just one of those things that you have to go through. . . great post.
Aww honey, believe me when I say this, it happens to everyone at some point of their lives. I realize where the guilt is coming from, but these things should best be taken as a part of bringing up your child. Kids get hurt, pick themselves up and walk on as stronger, tougher little soldiers. Well, toddle, crawl, you know what I mean, right?
Hugs.
Aww. Cheer up. These things do happen. You can't not let anything happen to your daughter, cause then nothing will ever happen to her. (quote from finding nemo!) =)
Unfortunately, accidents do happen. The main thing is that you didn't do it purposely, and you took care of your daughter - that's what counts.
Oh wow. I can tell you that it was bound to happen at some point. Don't let it hurt you too much, because this is actually when raising a child gets intense and whatnot. Plus, we all learn from our mistakes.
Wait, what am I saying? I'm not a parent, yet. Hopefully for not another 6 or 7 years.
I definitely understand those stories - and the rush of sucker-punch gut guilt you feel for days afterwards. I'm not a mom yet, but I nanny full-time. I know it might seem like it sucks when it's someone else's baby that's hurtling in slow-motion towards the floor, but I can't imagine what it would be like if it was my baby.
I remember when I was little, my big brother and my little brother were throwing rocks into a stream. Ethan (my big brother) heaved a rock probably weighing about 8 pounds towards the river, but Jack (younger one) ran in the way. All of the sudden I heard a mournful howling wail, then saw Jack fall to the ground. I ran to him and there was blood everywhere and his face was grey. It turned out that he had hit the only part of his head that WON'T kill him, so he had a few stitches and he was fine.
Still sucks to remember though.
Doesn't make you a bad mom, it makes you a real mom. Take it as an initiation.
I am so sorry about your baby! But I highly agree with the other comments. With my first son, his dad accidentally kicked him in his soft spot on his head when he was only six weeks old. Yikes, we thought for sure we had given him brain damage. Not! Then with our daughter she fell off of the bed and couch too many times to count. Feeling like bad mom now. With our third child, her sister was holding her and she spit up on her sister's new dress. Big sister promptly drops her! Finally, when my fourth and last child was born, I swore, swore that I would not drop, kick or whack this child's head on anything hard. Good intentions I suppose. Well I never did drop him. But oh, I can't even count the times his big sister dropped him, or accidentally squished him, or let him roll off of her bed when she was playing with him. Am I a bad mom? Do I feel guilty? Could I have done a better job watching over him? To all those questions my answer is "NO!" Your little girl is going to get hurt in life whether you do it or someone else does. None of it was every intentional and boo-boos get better.
Aw Don't be too hard on yourself! Accidents happen... Just the fact that you feel guilty and are worried is proof that you're a great parent!
I'm gonna chip in here from the other perspective too: that of the dropped kid. When I was about 2 years old, my mom managed to drop me face-first into a mud puddle under the swing we were using. I was fished out crying, but okay. Feeling guilty and wanting to make it up to me, my parents let me sit in the front seat of the car for the trip back home. The problem was that after buckling me in, my dad managed to slam the door on my fingers. Guilt trip squared. Today, however, I feel no lasting effects and the story still gets told for laughs.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. (Translation: don't be too hard on yourself. Accidents happen and this wasn't major.)
Parenting is one of the eaisiest most hard things there is. I think everybody has had one of those moments and bad as they are, it's worse when they're 16 and you make them cry because of something you said. Live and learn everyday. And enjoy it all, the wonderful crazy chaotic life of a mom.
Glad your baby is okay. I'm sure that when I'm a parent I'm going to be paranoid!
Oh, yes, girl, I have said it often. I wrote about it a while back here. Don't feel bad... we've ALL had those moments.
Don't be so hard on yourself, things like that happen with kids, especially the littler ones. I'm not a mom but I've been around plenty of kids in my life, I've got a lot of cousins that are a good 10+ years younger than me, and I have an 8 year old nephew that I used to babysit from the time he was born until he was about 3, and a 3 year old niece I've babysat a few times. I can remember the last few times "it happened to me" with my niece and my nephew, actually. With my niece, we were all at a party at my aunt's house, my sister had to go to the bathroom or something and told me to keep an eye on Melissa (my niece) while she was sitting on the trampoline with a cousin who was just a few months older than her. They were bouncing around a little, but they were definitely being careful. They both listen really well and I told them to stay toward the center so they wouldn't fall off the edge. They did, but while bouncing close to the center, they got too close to each other. I turned my head for like, less than a minute because my grandma called my name from across the yard. Next thing I heard was screaming kids. I asked them what happened and Melissa would just say "he hit my head!!" but Bryson (the cousin) was like "we were jumping and my head hit hers and it hurt!!" so i took them both in the house and got ice for their heads. After about 20 minutes, Melissa wanted to get back on the trampoline. I put her up there, her brother was on there and he's really protective of her. My sister was standing there with them, so I walked away to go talk to my cousin Mark since it was his birthday party. As I'm walking up toward the house to go find him, I hear Melissa screaming, I turn around and my sister was like, 4 feet away getting her camera out of her car to take a picture of Austin & Melissa sitting on the edge of the trampoline. Austin got bored sitting there and got up and started bouncing. Melissa was on the edge and fell about 3 feet from the trampoline to the ground. Her nose bled for a few seconds, but nothing serious enough to require medical attention. After that, we told her she couldn't get back on because she kept getting hurt. She was so sad, she was just crying to get back on the trampoline. She kept saying "I won't get hurt again!" like she felt like it was her fault when it was clearly ours for not keeping a closer eye on her.
With my nephew, I was babysitting him on a daily basis when he was first born. I was only 13, and didn't have much experience with kids at that time. He had this baby swing he liked to sit in and swing and it played some cutesy baby music, so I'd let him swing there for a while, and he'd fall asleep. I'd lift up the little tray, pick him up, and go put him in his bed. I'd done it a few times and it was pretty hard to do without waking him up or coming close to dropping him. I did drop him once and he woke up screaming as loud as he could (of course). I felt so bad, I was so scared it did serious damage because he was only about 4 months old. I was absolutely terrified. I didn't know what to do other than try to keep him awake. I did keep him awake for a while, until my sister got off work. I was scared to tell her what happened but she could tell because there was a bruise on his forehead. She took him to the doctor and luckily he was fine. I was so thankful to know he was ok after falling the way he did! Another time with him, when he was around 3, they lived in the apartment right upstairs from us, and every morning around 10, my sister would watch him walk down the stairs until he got in our house and he'd come wake up my mom. Well, one day, my sister was on the phone, my mom was right on the other side of the stairs and when he got to the bottom of the stairs he started running before he turned the corner to go see her. He smacked his head on the metal stair rail. The noise of his head hitting the metal was so loud I heard it inside our apartment. Then I heard him crying really loud and I was about to go see what happened when I heard him saying "kiss it granny it'll make it feel better!" so she kissed his forehead and he dried up those tears instantly. He came running in the house to me and he was like "Dana! I hit my head and it went 'BOIIIIINGGGG!'" and he made this noise that sounded JUST like the noise when he hit the stairs.
All babies fall off the bed, the changing table, the counter top, something. You watch them every second of every day, fire-proof the house, stick those plug things in all the electrical outlets, block off all the stairways, read all the ingredients in everything that comes in to the house, sterilize the world, and still things happen to them. You do the best you can do and then you don't worry about the rest. What else is there to do?
Aw, hey. Every kid gets banged up (and a bit bloody) sometimes. Happens to every parent. My mom was one of the most overprotective moms and I had scars and bruises on my legs until I was in my 20s from falling down from playing when I was a kid. I once ran into the bathroom headfirst and split my head. Blood everywhere. I had the scar on my face for years afterward. But my mom is one of the best moms in the world. I was just a normal, active kid. And every normal active kid tastes blood after awhile!
Every single one of my siblings has fallen off the bed, or even down the stairs! My mum felt dreadful about it, but it happens to everyone!!!
I would feel so terrible, too! But I guess I have had my own fair share of accidents as a child - most do. They all turn out okay usually! :)
You sound like a great mom! I don't have any kiddos yet, but someday I'm sure I'll be saying "It happened to me!"
It happens all the time. My moment of mortification came when my daughter was less than a year, and I strapped her in her infant car seat and started to drive off, when suddenly I took a turn and she starts wailing. I didn't realize it, but I had forgotten to secure the car seat itself with the seat belt and as I made the turn, the car seat flipped over. I was so scared and angry with myself that I started crying and immediately pulled over to strap it in. I could just remember crying and saying, "Oh baby I'm so sorry!!" but thankfully she wasn't hurt. So don't feel so bad, it's just part of being imperfect people, but it has no indication as to whether or not we love our children with all our hearts. We just make mistakes, and hopefully, we learn from them :)