Thursday, June 30, 2005

Tripping through the universe

No, I'm not blogging about the upcoming anthology. I'm blogging about a "trip" I took yesterday.

As I was walking down the hall, holding my baby, I tripped over something one of the kids had left on the floor. With horrible visions of the baby being injured flashing through my mind, I threw out my right hand to catch myself and slammed my knuckles against a doorjamb. It hurt, but I couldn't swear because two kids were standing there looking at me. Instead of uttering the expletives that sprang to my tongue, I calmly handed off the baby to the oldest girl, got ice, and put it on my hand. That stopped it from swelling much, but it didn't totally fix the problem (I appear to have jammed the joint in my hand beneath the third finger). It hurts like heck when I move my hand, and I can't do much with my third and fourth fingers. This is not a good thing, since I'm right handed, and it's not going to permit me to type much today, either. But all things considered, better my hand than the baby's head.

Now I have klutz guilt. Fortunately I didn't hurt the baby, but I could have, and that upsets me. (Something similar happened with my second child, and the thought that she could have been hurt still haunts me, seven years later.) Sadly we're all human, and we can do bad things to our kids without meaning to (like shutting little fingers in doors). But that doesn't make it any easier to forgive ourselves when we do something stupid...

3 comments:

  1. I'm a total klutz and was even worse when I was pregnant. I fell with each of the three monsters, and worried for months that I'd hurt them. They came out fine, thankfully.

    The worst kid accident that has happened close to me was my FIL and neice. He smokes. He had a cigarette in his hand, lowered his hand down toward his side, and didn't know she was behind him. Somehow the burning end went into her eye. Very, very scary, but it ended up not being that serious of an injury. Scared everybody absolutely to death, though.

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  2. My sister was carrying her daughter in her arms and tripped over the toolbox the plumber had left in the hall. My sister was okay, but the baby had a broken leg. Fortunately, she recovered well.

    Nevertheless, it was such a distressing incident. You can't be too careful.

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  3. Oh Ellen!!!!!! I almost screamed when I read about this. But you were lucky and so was your baby. Oh...I do not dare even to think what could have happened.

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