Confessions

My favorite non-friend blog to follow is The Pioneer Woman. She has her confessions page, which while very entertaining, usually amounts to admitting preferring picking her toenails over doing manure-encrusted laundry. Or her love of dessert and her dog Charlie.

My confession is much worse. For the second time in less than a month, I dropped my child.

This child.

This beautiful, beautiful child.

The first time, I was carrying her and Wesley up the stairs to naptime. Piper was squirming, trying to climb up onto my shoulders and from there up on my head. She made it, just a moment before she kept going, over my shoulders and onto the tile floor, two or three stairs down. She was perfectly fine, eventually, but I did end up taking her to the ER later that night after she developed a few worrisome symptoms.

The second time was much, much worse. Fully accidental, but far more traumatic and very preventable.

We were at a summer concert in our hometown. We met a few friends down there and I took a few of the girls up front to dance. I was working with almost 4-year olds, so we weren’t doing anything complex. Think “Ring A Round the Rosie”. Occasionally backwards. Piper only wanted to hold my hand and eventually just wanted to hold my legs. That was getting dangerous for me (ha!) as I was tripping over her and I had four or five girls dancing with me by now. So I put her on my shoulders, letting her hang on with her hands and feet. And she did great, until I somehow mis-stepped, and she fell back, managing to turn in the air so she landed on her face in the gravel. If you are picturing this happening right in front of stage, with everyone watching the cute preschoolers dancing, well, you would be correct. No only did I drop my child, causing distress for both of us and decent injury for her, I did it while everyone in the park was watching.

Two lessons.

1) Back up moms are the best. I had two mom-friends there. Brandy immediately helped me with wipes, water, a chair, everything she could do to help me clean and comfort Piper. Jen completely took full responsibility for Wesley so I didn’t have to worry about him at all while I took care of Piper. They were great, and I don’t know how I would have managed without them. I think a stranger helping me out would have made me cry, and I didn’t have time to do that.

2) I did this right in front of the manned table that had two signs on it: “Lost Child” and “First Aid”. Piper fell no further than 1o feet from the First Aid sign and wailed loudly and bled profusely (well, it seemed to me). Not a single person from that table came to see if I needed help in anyway. No offers of ice, or tissue, or bandages, or phone calls, or medics. I guess the second lesson is really just how important the first lesson is.

Other than some scratches on her right cheek that will heal soon, and a slightly swollen upper lip, she was back to her usual self after a long nap (during which I checked on her often!). She healed more quickly than my heart did.