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Parenting link of the day, mostly for my own reference: Ignore your child, but do it lovingly.

It has come to my attention that I mostly only talk about the good stuff. I admit it is a bit of a habit; I find fun more interesting to share than pain. But I don't mean to give an inaccurate picture of what all of this is like. For all that N is cute and wonderful and for all that I'm enjoying watching her development, there are definitely days that are frustrating and nights that are worse. (Make no mistake: the sleep deprivation I'm experiencing as a new parent is completely unlike any I'd ever experienced before, and can screw me up for days if I'm not careful.)

For a while, I've been meaning to write a post about all the ways in which I feel like I'm a "bad mother", and the experiences that led us to those choices (unrepentant pacifier usage, occasional formula feedings, leaving her with a sitter sometimes while we socialize, and so on). But yesterday, I actually had an experience that DID make me feel like a bad mother.

Yesterday afternoon, while coming in to the house, I was holding N in the carseat in one arm and had my camera slung over the other shoulder. I also had the diaper bag on my back and another bag ... somewhere. I was probably carrying too much stuff. Anyway, I ... what happened? I don't clearly remember. Maybe I had to set something down, maybe I was getting my keys, maybe I was startled by a noise, but the camera slipped off of my shoulder and fell on Natalie's forehead.

Now, this is the Rebel I'm talking about, a couple of pounds of big heavy camera, and I believe that it was the metal ring of the filter on the end of my lens that hit her. I stopped in my tracks and everything froze for a second while I looked at her and she looked at me and I looked at the dent in her head and my heart came into my throat but everything was still silent since she was still shocked -- and then she started screaming in a way I've never heard her scream. I ripped her out of the carseat and threw everything else onto the sidewalk next to it and ran inside, clutching her to my chest and murmuring soft comforting things with all of the gentleness I could muster through my total horror. I got an ice cube out of the freezer and tried to hold it to the swelling on her head, and this made her more agitated; it occurred to me to nurse her, so I took her and the ice cube and a little cloth into the next room and sat down to nurse. Trying to hold an ice cube to the head of an angry baby while running? Hard.

Anyway, I nursed her and she calmed down enough to do that, even though she still hated the ice cube and would pause while nursing to cry some more. I called David to freak out a little bit, while she was nursing, and he suggested calling the doctor. I knew this was the right thing to do, but I still had the impulse to call him first. So I explained what had happened to the nurse on call, and he recommended that I go to the ER right away. AFter all, he said, at her young age, we don't know what might have happened, and so she will probably need an XRay or a CAT scan.

Good lord! Had I just inflicted an injury on my child so severe that she needed to be rushed to the ER for a CAT scan?!

Nothing for it but to go. We went to the Cambridge Hospital, and I brought a bag of frozen corn to hold to her head in the waiting room. She semed to like it more than ice. While waiting for the triage nurse, N calmed down enough to play with her shiny stuffed robot. In fact, she was calm enough that he made an incredibly inappropriate crack about this being a clear case of child abuse, and one for child protective services.

Note to the public: do not joke with the parent of an infant about turning them in for child abuse. It's probably not funny.

Anyway, the doctor and female nurse I dealt with once we were in were great. They held us for observation for 5 hours, and Natalie was fine. No weird pupil response, no vomiting, no favoring of one side over the other, no inconsolable prolonged wailing. Just a little bit more irritable than usual, but basically normal. When David showed up to bring me food and cash to pay for parking (I had forgotten my wallet and the diaper bag), N cheered up tremendously. I suspect that hospitals are deathly boring.

They discharged her and told us to bring her in tomorrow (today) for another visit. She has seemed fine since then, smiling and burbling and grabbing her feet as usual, and the only difference between now and any other day is that she has a faint faint red mark on her skin and she wants to nurse constantly. But hey, it keeps her from being agitated, and makes me feel like if I'm going to drop a big heavy thing on my kid, at least I'm able to comfort her afterward.

EDIT: I know this doesn't actually make me a bad mother, but it sure did make me feel like one!

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*hug* accidents happen. and this proves that N is made of teflon. you did everything right.

I say this having no authority to do so whatsoever: acidents happen. You are not allowed to beat yourself up (to the degree that you can help). Looking back at my own childhood, I am quite clear that it is often far, far more important how you respond to the accident than the fact that it happened, and you did beautifully. Go you. Glad N is ok.

Whew; glad she's all right!

Apparently it's the week to accidentally injure one's child (did you see my post about gashing Joshua's thumb on Monday? and my friend

tendyl tumbled her baby out of the carseat because the handle wasn't locked). Thank heavens, none of us have done permanent damage. Yay baby resilience.

I did, it sounded terrifying!

Yay resilience indeed!

eep! glad to read she's okay.

did i ever tell you the story about breaking my leg as a kid?

I don't think so. Should you, sometime? :)

i totally should :)
i'm happy to relate it here, but you might not find it funny for another week or so.

Give me the name and number of the triage nurse. I think about 3am your time I'm going to have a *great* death threat joke to tell someone. *grrrr*

Yeah, seriously! I didn't get his name, but I do know what he looks like in case I ever meet him in one of those dark alleys I hang out in.

yow! I'm glad she is okay. I have slightly banged

gljiva's head into things while holding her (well, okay, she helped) but never hard
enough to even think about calling the doctor(ie, not enough to provoke more than a minor fuss), and already worry about whether other people just have it much more together than me at the parenting thing.

I've done that, too -- I always feel like such a heel.

One of my younger brothers was both and hyperactive (ran around a whole lot) and had very bad eyesight as a small child. This is a bad combination.

Around the third or fourth time my mom took her little toddler in to the emergency room for stitches to the head, she started taking character witnesses in with her. Because yes, he really was just running into the wall and splitting his head open badly enough to need stitches... every month or so. No matter what his file looked like.

It's an old enough story that the edges have worn off and it's funny now. But if someone had made a crack like that at her in the waiting room, it would have been devastating.

(On the upside, they eventually put him, as a three year old, into these giant glasses that make for absolutely adorable photos. And that solved the running into walls problem.)

I'm glad N is ok, and that you are as well!

Hey, sympathy! These things happen, and they are terrifying, but you did everything well.

This sounds like the time I thought I'd broken Maya's arm. She came racing across the room to give me a hug, and banged one hand into my hip instead of reaching around it. Her arm went SNAP! and she started screaming, but the doc said it was just a strain on her wrist - equivalent to "nursemaid's elbow". Everything was fine about two hours later.

I think human brains have evolved to take care of little kids even under severe sleep deprivation. I know that I was able to do all the absolute ground-level stuff required to care for Maya when she was about 18 months old.

These things happen, and they are terrifying, but you did everything well.

Thanks! While sitting in the ER, I basically figured that out -- the terror of the whole thing is probably going to happen several times. It's just like that. Scary things will happen, and you just have to deal with them.

*Hugs*. All's well that ends well, but I'm sorry it was so traumatic.

When she was a toddler, we called my sister "Too-tall hard-head" for her tendency to attempt to walk *under* tables she instead banged right into, repeatedly and nearly without noticing. And I once figured out how to open the baby gate and fell down a flight of stairs to the basement. And though some will say that explains a lot about me, I just vote "kids are tough."

It really wasn't *traumatic*, just a little exciting. It's totally fine now! But thanks. :)

Kids are very tough, it's true.

I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant experience for N, but it is good for her to know that "if something bad happens, Mommy will be there for me."

I hope to teach her that.

Wow. Glad N's all right.
That link certainly brings back memories. See, that letter was published just around the time K's mom and I were starting to diverge on the way forward for a continuum-raised child, just as she was getting to an appropriate point in her development. For me, it was an affirmation of the changes I had been making already. I showed it to B and she said it didn't matter, it was too late for her to change anything about the way she was interacting with K, and that furthermore it was all my fault for making her too child-centric in the first place. She ignored the letter, and kept on as before. The two of them got into willful struggles more frequently, while K and I were getting along better than ever.
It was weird, as B complained frequently about how 'difficult' K was with her, but was completely closed to the idea that she could do anything differently to make it better. Very frustrating for me (and K). Of course we all survived. But I do feel overall it was more difficult than it needed to be.

Interesting - how old was K at the time?

About 2. Looking back, we had actually had different interpretations of what Jean Liedloff had said in her book from the beginning, but we each felt our own approach was working OK for us. I took what opportunities I could to go and do stuff, visit friends, etc. with a baby hanging off of me most of the time, basically going about my own life but prepared for frequent unplanned interruptions. And beginning sometime after age 1, I had begun to set some boundaries, when I felt K was testing me in a way that just didn't feel right.

Around age 2 was the point where it was becoming obvious (and a source of household stress) that B and K were not getting along so well anymore, and B felt K wasn't ALLOWING her the freedom to do what she wanted, but rather testing her constantly.

I thought I remembered the author actually saying she'd gotten a lot of calls & letters from parents who'd read her book, and had been trying to practice continuum parenting, but in a child-centric way, and were having trouble & getting desperate to know what they were doing wrong. But rereading it, I guess it was not necessarily that - more like random parents who were simply having behavioral problems with their kids.

"So I explained what had happened to the nurse on call, and he recommended that I go to the ER right away."

Sadly that is what they say anytime the words "infant" and "head" occur in the same incident.

Regarding the link -- it seems to me that children need to learn how to entertain themselves, just like they need to learn how to soothe themselves into sleep. The caregiver paying attention to other things and people helps teach the child that.

hat is what they say anytime the words "infant" and "head" occur in the same incident.

He basically said as much, too -- he had in fact started with "I'm sure it's fine, but since she's so young..."

It's hard to not pay attention to her a lot of the time! I'm sure I'll get better at it.

Yipes!

Gald things are turning out okay, though!

Oh, honey! I hadn't realized it was that tempestuous.

.

You singlehandedly made my day marvelous today!

It was fine, just scary in the moment. The moment was scary, though, definitely.

I'm glad she's ok and that the ER people (dumb triage nurse aside -- how many times can you do that and keep that kind of job?) were helpful. I hope *you're* okay too.

Jeeeeesus Christ, how frightening. I'm glad she's okay.

And here (http://www.joelderfner.com/blog/2005/12/post_4.html), have a possibly reassuring link.

That is awesome.

I can certainly sympathize. In the last day of moving chaos, I set Jefferson down on the bed and turned to pick something up only to catch his falling body catapulting out of the bed out of the corner of my eye. He actually didn't scream for that long, and he had no lasting signs of injury, but I felt like a terrible mother for days afterward.

Oh sweet jumping jebus on a stick - that's scary. *hugs to all*

Er, make that *hugs to all except the ER nurse :P *
People are really amazingly bad sometimes, eh?

This is why they make babies out of rubber. They really do spring back remarkably well. Sorry you had such a fright!

That sounds so scary. I would have been terrified for days I think, had I done that when Benjamin was so little; I probably still would be even now.

(And the ER nurse really, really should know better, too.)

I am so glad she is ok! :-)

It might not be a bad idea to talk to the ER nurse's supervisor.

Glad N's okay!

Oh, God! Incredibly inappropriate comment about child services. *hugs* Glad you're all three of you so resilient.

Dear God!

If it makes you feel any better (and it probably doesn't) I know

a: what you mean about the "bad mothering" I'm always wondering if I'm holding him enough or letting him sit in the bouncy seat too long or not letting him establish good sleeping patterns etc. etc.

b: how easy it is to whack the baby with a very heavy camera (I have a Nikon D70), and there was one time where I came SO UTTERLY close to doing what you did that I always put everything in the car and then get Aidan.

c: I one cut his finder open trying to clip his nails one day (like drawing blood cut) and I swear I cried more than he did (but had the same weird reaction to nurse him).

---

I'm so glad she's OK. I look on the bright side, it wasn't until I had Aidan that my mother told me that once she went to put me down the in the crib and I pulled myself up from the rail and literally did a header over the side.

I THINK I'm OK. I'm sure miss N will be too... and I know eventually I'll have one of these with Aidan. :( I guess it's one of those parenting things no book can prepare you for.

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