Really Pants

Parenting Lesson #1: Pace Yourself!

Well Valentines day started off so promisingly, I got a lovely card, beautiful flowers, yummy chocolates, AND a voucher to get a massage treatment (this would be making up for the four previous years where I got nothing!) - lucky Mummy! My husband insisted I go and get my massage treatment and then meet him and Honey for lunch afterwards - I did not argue, and his brownie points were totting up by the second! I was feeling thoroughly spoilt and special and had a wonderfully relaxing treatment. Unfortunately that is where the loveliness ended. Read on….

On my way to meet them, I was aware as I travelled up the escalators that I could hear a baby crying, but I had been in touch a few minutes before and so didn’t think anything much of it, other than, poor baby. When I got to our meeting point at the cafe I could see our pram, but no husband, and no baby to be seen. I looked around and then asked someone if they had seen them only to be told that my husband had run off to the bathroom with the baby as the baby had been burnt! It took a moment to register what the man had said and then I realised with horror that the baby that was crying, was my baby! I didn’t recognise her cry as I have never heard her cry like that before, it was a totally different noise - it was awful.

I ran across the room trying to find them (there were lots of room dividers and I couldn’t see where they were, or were to go), I felt utterly panic stricken. My husband had found a first-aider to help and I found them with a distraught Honey with her little legs wrapped in cold wet napkins. She had been sitting on my husbands lap and she had thrown her toy and knocked over the cup of hot tea that he had just ordered, and had placed out of her reach. The tea had flooded over her legs which thankfully had both tights and leggings on, and my husband had whipped them off as soon as it happened. Amazingly though, this happened in a busy place, with other parents and children around and plenty of staff working, and NOONE helped him! He had run to the toilets with screaming baby to try to get to cold water only to find they only had hot taps, he then had to frantically try to find someone to help and get the cold water that he needed. I was so angry when I later found out that not one person had tried to help him or my baby particularly as he was clearly on his own. Is it just me that thinks that it is a very sorry state when we are so scared to get involved, that it stops us from helping a baby? I can’t understand this myself, I know that I could not witness something like that and not try to help.

My immediate instinct when I saw the state Honey was in was to get my baby to hospital as soon as I could. I could see how scarlet her little legs were under the napkins and I just wanted to do whatever I could to take the pain away for her. I bundled her up, keeping the cold compresses on and we rushed to the car.

We could have gone to the main city hospital but we went straight to the Sick Kids which was a little closer, and I had heard that in an emergency it was the best place to go with an infant. I was so glad we went there, they were brilliant. I rushed through carrying a still crying Honey and they immediately and calmly listened to what had happened and wrapped her legs in cello wrap  as apparently this is the best thing for burns and helps with the pain (a very good thing to remember I think) and they gave her pain relief. We were then to wait for 30mins for the pain killers to take effect.

The only thing I could think and wanted to do to comfort my baby was to breast-feed her. The ‘Mummy Medicine’ combined with what the nurse gave her seemed to compliment each other beautifully and very quickly Honey calmed down and relaxed in my arms.

I was dreading the doctor coming back to examine her as I thought how distressing she was going to find this, but to our amazement, our daughter was an absolute trooper and even managed to smile at the doctors and was fascinated by watching the nurse bandage her legs up. It was so upsetting for us to see that our baby girl had been badly scalded and had blisters formed all down the back and insides of her legs. It looked so painful. We wont know how bad the burns are until I take her back for her bandages to be changed tomorrow. We are just hoping that her new baby skin will be fast healing and that any scars will be minimal, for this reason, I can’t help but feel so thankful that it was not her face that the tea hit.

Other than a restless night and the fact that her legs look double the size under her leggings, you would not be able to imagine yesterdays horrors. Honey has been cheerful and active all day - amazing! I think if it were me with those injuries, I would not want to move and I know it would be so painful. Babies really are so amazing and so very resilient.

As you can imagine, we have been wracked with guilt over this. My husband has been going over and over it and was so so upset that it happened - he keeps saying how he was making sure everything was out of her reach and being really careful. I know that this is absolutely the case and that what happened was an accident. Honey is a very busy 8month old baby girl and she threw her toy and it was jut extremely unlucky that it struck the cup. I have been feeling guilty that I didn’t recognise my own baby’s cry and it just makes me feel sick to remember her little face looking at me screaming in pain and that I couldn’t do anything to take it away. Normal reactions I think.

However the reason I wanted to share our story was to share in this advice that my sister gave to me last night as I was relaying the story and my anxieties and guilt to her. She simply interrupted me and said, “Pace yourself Holly!”

As she so rightly went on to point out, we are at the beginning of a very long journey of our daughters life. This, awful as it was, will not be the last thing that will happen to rattle our parental nerves during the years to come. There are bound to be many more bumps and scrapes to kiss better, not to mention the teenage angst and broken hearts to cope with! If we were to beat ourselves up every time something happened, we would be totally spent and no use at all to our children!

Every parent wants to be there at all times to protect their precious ones but it is physically impossible, and with all the best will in the world, accidents do happen. What we need to be able to do is not get into a guilt-ridden emotional spiral and concentrate on being there to help wipe away the tears, and to have arms always open wide for a cuddle.