Our Little Baby Blog

Some days are better than others

Today was one of those days that you hear other mothers tell you about and you think to yourself, wow, we've had some rough days, but thank God that never happened.

And despite my efforts to be and appear like a mother worthy of her children's love, I'm going to share with you the complete and total horrific day that has just unfolded.

As many of you know, Chicago has had a tremendous heat wave over the last few weeks and we've been stuck inside because of the humidity and the mosquitoes (poor Abe and Anna have been bitten like 10 times each in the last week). However, yesterday and today we've seen a dramatic drop in temperatures. I pulled on a jacket yesterday morning when I took the trash out, etc. and I've had the windows open and the screen door off our dining room open to let in the cool air. Foreshadowing, people, I am alerting you to the foreshadowing.

The kids were playing early this afternoon in the living room and I excused myself to visit the bathroom. We're real formal around here. In fact, I didn't completely shut the door, I just did the 3/4 way shut thing. A minute or two later I hear this thump, thump, thump.

And I hear a scream from Abe... and then Anna yelling, Abie, Abie.

I run out to the dining room/living room area and they are not there. Then I turn around and my heart explodes... the screen door has been pushed open. Abe is at the bottom of the deck stairs on the ground, screaming bloody murder. There are five or six steps from the deck to the bottom brick area and he's fallen down every one of them.

I screamed, oh my God, and RAN down the steps and grabbed him and then I turned around and screamed at Anna, why did you open the door? how did this happen? you know you don't open the door! Anna starts screaming and crying and I am running to get back into the house and find my keys because I've got to get him to a doctor fast. Now I'll let a few bumps and bruises go, but this was a fall down a set of wooden stairs -- a fall that I didn't even see so I don't know if he's hit every single step on the way down with his head or what. But bumps are swelling on his forehead and I am TERRIFIED at this point. I'm yellling at Anna to get her shoes on, I'm racing around looking for my keys. I'm freaking out.

You see last night, Anna opened the back door and let herself out to sit on the steps. Mike was mowing the lawn and she wanted to watch him. Obviously, we have strict rules about not going outside without an adult and so she got a big talking-to about how it's not safe to be out there unless we're with her. Our screen door doesn't lock, it just slides open and shut and it's never really been an issue except for a couple of isolated instances. Now, of course, I feel like a total idiot for not replacing that door the day we moved in, but I just never really considered it a big deal until now.

So I throw the kids in the car and start towards the ER. On the way, I called my pediatricion, thinking that maybe if I can get in there right away I'll head her direction. But they can't see me until 7:45 pm so I just keep driving. In the car, I turn to Anna and say, again, why did you open that door? you know you're not allowed to go outside. And Anna starts sobbing again and says... ABE OPENED THE DOOR.

And my heart drops because I know from the way she is crying and how upset she is that she is telling the truth. Even though he's never done it before, he could easily have opened it. I just didn't think it had ever occurred to him. However, Abe's been repeating everything we do lately. In fact, yesterday, I grabbed one of Anna's little shoes and tried to smash a little bug that was running along the baseboard in our house. Abe laughed at me while he watched it from his high chair. And, sure enough, when he got down a few minutes later, he walked over and picked up that same shoe and went to the same wall and started banging it there.

Suddenly things sort fall into place. Anna probably would not have let Abe follow her out, if she had opened the door herself, either yelling for me or just pushing him back inside. And I don't think she would have opened the door herself because she'd just gotten in trouble for it the night before.

I feel horrible. I can't believe that I've just screamed at her and freaked out for something that she had nothing to do with. I can't imagine how scaary it must have been to see him tumble, to hear my freaking out and to then be yelled out by the person who is supposed to be calm. Let me just say I've had a lot of humbling moments as a parent, but this one is the very worst.

I don't know what the appropriate thing to do is in a situation like this, but I apologized for the next 10 minutes straight. I told her that I was so sorry I yelled and that I didn't realize Abe had opened the door. That I loved her so much and I'm so sorry that I didn't understand. I thanked her for explaining it to me and just kept repeating how sorry I was that I didn't understand.

We unloaded ourselves at the ER and they start asking me lots of questions. How far did he fall? Did he hit his head? Was he concious the whole time? Even though he was acting alright and completely alert, the distance of his fall meant that he was a "category 2" and that meant he needed to get an x-ray and a CT scan of his head. Two giant bruises and bumps on his head can't really tell you what's going on inside.

So Anna and I head back into a room where we undress Abe (who is now FREAKING OUT) and he gets completely poked and prodded by every employee in the hospital. We've made some references to how loud Abe is, but I'll just tell you this. He is several decibals louder than an average child on a regular day, but when he's just fallen down a flight of steps and is now being approached by strangers bearing odd scienfitic implements, he is deafening.

And he's strong. I am struggling to keep him in my arms and he's struggling to get down and walk and he's screaming because he doesn't want the nurses to touch him. It wasn't a pretty picture. I had to lay him down on an x-ray board and then hold on to his feet while a nurse tried to hold his hands and torso, while he is red-faced and screaming and thrashing around.

We finally managed to get the x-ray taken (nothing broken, thankfully) when they bring in a head brace mounted to a board. And they inform me that I'm going to have to get him onto the board and his head stabilized in this thing so they can then swaddle him in a blanket around the board and I can try to calm him (in the brace!) prior to taking the CT scan of his head.

Hell, no, I thought. This will never work. And, sure enough, it didn't. He was so upset and crazed, face beet red and tears streaming down his cheeks. Struggling inside this brace, he was actually sweating. Meanwhile, I'm trying to rock him and sing to him -- despite the screams. Finally, they agreed that this was not going to work and they let him loose. So I stood up and held him and tried to calm him down again. Thankfully, the nurses decided to move us into a dark room and turn on a little TV for Anna who had otherwise just been entertaining the nurses. I'll say one thing, that kid can socialize with anyone about anything and while I'm sure there will be some stranger danger moments, I'm glad that she was able distract herself today.

We get back into the darker room and Abe starts to relax on my lap. He's smiley now and playing with Anna. I decide to call my neighbor to come pick up Anna and she agrees. Mike was stuck at work (plus his commute would take nearly an hour to get there anyway) so I'm really lucky that we had a place for her to go.

But Abe's torture was not over. After 45 minutes(?) or so, they tell me we have to try it again. The goal was that Abe would fall asleep and then they could put him in the brace and do the CT scan while he was still. I explained to them that that's not what Abe does. He doesn't fall asleep easily unless it is exactly at the times he typically naps or goes down for the night. But, they somehow thought he'd just cry himself to sleep and it would all be okay.

Of course, it wasn't. So we get him into the brace and AGAIN he screams and shakes and thrashes around to the point that they basically abandoned it midway through. I was right there with him, covered in a a lead gown, but my presence really wasn't calming him a bit. He was completely freaked out by everything and I don't blame him. Being strapped in is not his thing, I mean he hates driving to the grocery store in his car seat, for pete's sake. We got the head scan taken, but not the neck. The nurse essentially says that it's pointless. He can't lay still enough for them to get it so we'll have to try again later. Later??

Back to the room. And at this point I'm starting to get a little nervous about doing any more CT scans at all. I don't like the idea of radiation around my 14 month old baby and I don''t really want to have him get anything unnecessarily if he is looking and acting just fine. I mention this to the nurse and even call my pediatrician's office to get her take because I'm just not sure I'm comfortable with this.

Fortunately, while we are sitting there eating graham crackers and cheerios, our doctor walks in and tells me that the CT scan was just fine and he's not going to make us sit around and wait until Abe falls asleep to do a neck scan. We can go. The kid's alright.

Thank GOD!!! I'm racing to get us out of there at this point. First, I just want to get out of there. Second, Abe is acting totally fine at this point. Third, I want to make sure Anna isn't having some sort of panic attack at the neighbor's house. Fourth, I just want to get out of there!!

So we pick up Anna, who is having the time of her life playing princess with the neighbors, of course, and get home.

Aside from two large bruises on his forehead and a day of complete and utter torture, Abe is doing alright now. In fact, I'm wondering if you are doing alright now that you've had to endure reading this ENDLESS post. Anna seems to have forgiven me, though I'm not sure I deserve it, and we ordered take out for dinner.

Mike is at Home Depot as we speak, trying to figure out a way to replace the screen door.

This day is nearly over and I'm so glad. So, so, so, glad.

As I said before, some days are just harder than others.