Friends who bite

See the big bite mark on her forearm, up by her elbow? Apparently Rose has some "friends" at school who like to bite. This is the third incident that we've had since she entered the toddler room. None of the others have left marks, but this one looks bad! Poor girl.

long time overdue updates

Two full weeks since my last post?! Yikes! Here's what we've been up to in the past couple weeks:

* Rose's burns are almost completely healed! Yay!!!!

* I was in Washington (state, not DC) for work for almost a  week. I planned to get caught up on sleep, but ended up coming home even more sleep deprived than ever. (Stupid time difference vs. circadian rhythms!) But at least I came home (mostly) emotionally healed. I can now almost talk about how Rose got burned without crying. Almost.

* I took the WA jurisprudence exam - on my birthday. Blech! Let's just hope I passed.

*  We went apple picking at Mike's stepbrother's new house!

* Rose is pretty much fully transitioned to the toddler room at "school" now. According to Mike (who does daycare dropoff every day), she is now reaching for her teaching rather than clinging to him and crying each morning.

* Mike starts student teaching tomorrow!

* The change in schedule means that I have to do both dropoff and pickup. Gulp! Wish me luck with that...

* I played mahjong with friends, sewed a few more quilt squares for Mike's belated anniversary present, and had lunch with another friend. As you can see, I'm working hard to fit in time for self-care.

* I've also been trying to exercise again, but every time I start running, I end up getting sick! It happened again last week (and maybe being sleep deprived, stressed from taking an exam in WA, and getting the flu shot had something to do with it, but apparently I'm just going to blame the running). I think running is just a lot of stress on my body and I'm also making too many changes all at once (eat better! see friends! do hobbies! and RUN!). I've started looking into yoga classes and gym memberships so I can try to get exercise in a more gentle way, since I'm sick of being bed-ridden for a day or two within 2-3 weeks of each running attempt. Sigh.

* And Rose turned 17 months old!



Here are some photos from the last few weeks, in completely random order:

Remember when I was pregnant and said I'd never dress my daughter in all pink? Well, apparently the saying is true that you're a far better parent before you become one yourself! :)

Teaching the art of the "selfie."

She is so excited to finally be able to reach the sink faucet!

Her burns were mostly healed when I returned on 9/14 (above), and the scar is barely even visible now.
I am SOOOO thankful she was not hurt worse.

She's turning into such a little person nowadays. She LOVES seeing dogs and was pointing to one here.

Cousins Claire and Ella, as we hiked through their forest.

My two favorite explorers!

Claire asked me to take a picture of her under this tree.

After the woods, we hiked through a field.

Rose has learned to flirt for the camera!

She decided that she loves fettucine alfredo!
(I love her big, expressive eyes!)

My friend Marcy brought over some DELICIOUS cupcakes for my birthday. Her son Noah was so wonderful with Rose! He read her books, practiced animal sounds with her, and taught her to be silly by putting the tupperware lid on her head. She loves him!


Rose's two new favorite "games" are:

...picking up a tomato from the pile in the kitchen, making a bite mark, then hiding the tomato in our living room. So far I've found about seven of them. I hope I find any others soon.

...or giving "gifts" to the cats. It sure is sweet to watch, even if the cats are completely uninterested.

She also loves crawling through the tunnel my parents gave her.

And she is learning to enjoy helping me bake! (Finally!! I can bake again!!!)

And, last but not least, here's her official 17-month-old photo! Mike and I both think she looks SO similar in this one to a photo of me (at about her age) that we've seen, but neither of us knows which exact one. Maybe my parents will know so we can do a side-by-side comparison.

So for the very long (and very belated!) post! Have a great week, everyone!

more updates

Sorry for the short post earlier. I didn't have much time, but wanted everyone to know that Rose should be fine! Now for some details...

I can't say enough good things about providers at HCMC. They whisked us right in at her appointment time (an outpatient visit on a Sunday morning!), and were kind, compassionate, efficient and clearly experts. As awful as this whole experience has been, I've been so grateful for the wonderful medical staff we worked with at both HCMC and Methodist.

Basically, Rose now has a giant mousepad-like dressing on the open wound of her shoulder/chest, and that's being held in place (for the next five days!) by a gauze "t-shirt", which is then held down by a disposable ace bandage-like thing. (I know there must be technical terms for these things, but I don't remember them!)  Our job is to keep the mousepad-like thing dry, and to keep the rest of her burns (primarily on her neck, cheeks, and eyelids) moist with lots of coats of Eucerin.  She has a follow-up visit on Friday in order to check that the wounds are healing as they should be and to re-dress the wounds if necessary. The doctor said she should be healed within two weeks, and within a couple months there should only be minor discoloration on her chest, if anything at all.

We've only given her a couple doses of baby Percocet (as prescribed) in the last couple days, and tomorrow she'll start taking ibuprofen instead. She seems to be doing really well, just a bit more tired than usual - and when she gets tired, she fights sleep. But all in all, she is acting like the happy, curious, funny, smart, generous, sweet, and contemplative girl that she is.

I'm feeling marginally better than yesterday. I'm not constantly on the verge of tears any more, but they definitely come quickly. As long as I stay busy, I feel fine. But when I slow down, I replay the accident in my head again and again, and am still wracked with guilt. Hopefully time will heal these wounds as well.

It definitely wasn't the type of weekend that I was expecting to be having with my grandparents in town!

Have a great week, everyone.

She's going to be okay!

The doctors at hcmc were great!

forgiveness?

I've been crying all day. I know I need to forgive myself, but it's so hard when what happened was my fault! I know it was an accident, but I also know that I could have - should have! - done things differently.


My parents and grandparents came to town last night. We had a lovely dinner at Pizza Luce, then came home to put Rose to bed. We sat out on our new front patio and chatted for a few hours, until it got too dark and bug-y to stay out any longer. We ended with a plan to bring breakfast to their hotel this morning around 8 or so.

Rose surprised us by waking early at 5:30. Since she was so grumpy, we decided to do our grocery shopping in the morning before breakfast. (She loves sitting in the car carts at Byerly's!) Mike and I were both tired and ended up bickering a few times at the grocery store and after we returned home. I went into the kitchen to cut up the breakfast fruits, while Mike worked on packing up our swimsuits for the hotel pool. Rose was happily entertaining herself in the living room, then she came into the kitchen to play with the measuring cups. I said hi then turned to continue washing the dishes, and suddenly I heard a crash and screams.

Rose had pushed in the hidden cutting board, which knocked down my hot tea (that I had just poured) directly onto her face and torso.

I screamed for Mike. He rushed her into the bathroom to pour cool water on her, while I hurried to confirm that that was the correct first aid. Rose continued to scream, and I couldn't tell if it was from the shock, from pain, or from anger at being doused in cold water.

Then we took off her shirt and saw a huge patch of blistered/broken skin on her collarbone. I immediately knew: we were hospital bound.

We hurried there, with me yelling at Mike to drive carefully, because we couldn't strap her in tightly else the carseat's belt would dig into her open wound. As soon as we arrived, the medical staff rushed us in. Rose started screaming louder and louder, clearly remembering the trauma of our last visit to the ER only a week ago.  It took two IV attempts, but soon she had a blessed dose of morphine. As she began to calm, I began to sob.

I did this. I turned my back on my baby and a hot cup of tea. I should have known that Rose loves to push the cutting boards in. I should have known better!

The things that people have been telling me have been making me feel even worse. It could have been so much worse. Yes, it could have. Which is why it's so awful that I wasn't paying more attention!   This is what being a mom is all about! Is it? It's about making stupid mistakes that can cause irreparable harm to your own child?  This is the first of many accidents you'll go through. No, not "accidents" like this. I can cope just fine with real accidents - when she tripped and skinned her knee, or when she got a fluke fever and needed antibiotics. Those are true accidents and there was nothing I could have done differently. Me leaving my hot tea on a ledge, only 5 minutes after I asked Rose not to push the other cutting board in because I didn't want a melon to fall on her? That's ME. MY fault. I made the mistake that caused her harm.

And yet, somehow I need to find a way to forgive myself. Rose has forgiven me, Mike has forgiven me, my parents and grandparents seem to have forgiven me. I almost wish they would be mad at me, because then I could be mad at them rather than mad - so mad! - at myself.

I felt a little better after the two hour (!) nap that I took this afternoon. I'm hoping that I'll continue to feel better after a good night's sleep and after Rose's follow-up visit at HCMC's burn unit tomorrow.

again?!?

Today is day 5 of Rose's 5-day course of antibiotics. I thought that meant that she was on the mend, but alas she woke up with a fever of 103.1 this morning. Sigh. It seems like whatever illness she had last week has passed, but now she has contracted a new one: one that involves a milder fever (thankfully!) but lots and slots of nose goo, which does not make for easy breathing for Little Miss. Other than errands, we've had a really nice relaxing weekend of not camping, but apparently it wasn't relaxing enough. I feel terrible that she's sick again!

As a CBT therapist, I spend a fair amount of time talking to clients about cognitive distortions. During my little psychoeducational spiel, I always give a little disclaimer about how everyone has cognitive distortions (even people without clinical depression, diagnosable anxiety, an eating disorder, etc.), and that it's very important to know what our "favorites" are so we don't fall prey to them. I then self-disclose a bit and tell clients that I'm an expert catastrophizer. (It's true!) I keep catching myself today, and it goes something like this:

Rose is sick again.

Rose was just sick last week.

I already had to use PTO last week, and I'll have to use PTO tomorrow.

Remember last year when Rose caught every. single. illness. that went through the school? What if that's starting again?

I don't have enough PTO to take off as much as Mike was able to "work from home" last year. 

What if I run out of PTO and have to take unpaid leave? 

What if I lose my job because my daughter is sick so often?

We're already taking loans out for Mike to go to school. We can't survive on his loan money alone!

Would we even be able to sell our house if we couldn't afford the mortgage?  Where would we go to live if we lose our house?!?

Usually around that point I'm able to catch myself and bring my anxiety down a bit, but I've been hovering around step 6 of my spiral of catastrophe (i.e., what if I run out of PTO and have to take unpaid leave) almost all day.

Quite frankly, it's exhausting.

I just had a good cry with Mike, and gave him a little coaching. Here's what  I need to be telling myself right now, and apparently what I need others to tell me as well (since I haven't been able to convince myself quite yet):

We have a plan for tomorrow. We'll each take a half day.  I have the PTO available for tomorrow, and that's all we need to think about right now. Breathe. Just because she's sick today doesn't mean she'll be sick again, and worrying about it now won't do any good. 

We have a plan for tomorrow, and that's all we need right now. 

Breathe.

Sigh. So, on that note I'm off to bed early so I can get an early start on my workday tomorrow. Please send some restful, healing vibes in Rose's direction. Let's get her immune system working to fight off these bugs!

On Saturday Rose helped me to bake.

Yesterday she and Mac had lots of fun.

Note: I just re-read my post, and I noticed that I'm not at all worried about Rose's health. I have complete faith that she will be fine. Truly. So why can't I have the same faith in our finances?! It's a bit ridiculous.