As a parent, I hate to see my lils hurt. I expect a certain number of scrapes or bruises, and try to let the lils play hard enough that they earn those marks. I’d say that they do, judging by the number of bandaids that we go through, and the endless stream of owies that get kissed her. I have fears though, fears that they will really hurt themselves one day. I tend to get anxious about certain things, horsing around on stairs (stairs petrify me), running on the wet pool deck, riding their bikes in traffic, and anything to do with doors. Sadly, we seem to have one child that has recently started to slam doors, and one child who likes to loiter exactly in the door frame.

We were just hanging around the house yesterday, after a lunch out. It was quiet time, but the little monkeys were monkeying around, as they are known to do. Willy was in with Woo trying to finish his story, and Goose was bouncing around, alternating between calling downstairs to me and going to “check in” on the boys. I told her to go to her room, that I was coming up to get her settled. She didn’t though, she went to Woo’s room instead. As I started walking up the stairs, I heard them talking, followed by a slam, then this awful scream. I ran, yelling “open the door, open the door”, but they couldn’t hear me through her screaming and the thick door. It was merely seconds, but it seemed to take me an eternity to get to her. I opened the door, scooped her up and let Willy know what had happened.

She was still screaming and I tried to calm her on my way to the freezer. It was starting to work, then she both realized that it REALLY hurt, and actually looked at the damage. Her poor index finger was slightly dented, cut and bleeding, and the nail was already purple. Her upset reached new heights. Woo and Willy followed us down, trying to help to calm her. The only thing that did work was covering the finger with a facecloth, and that would only last til the next throb of pain. We managed to get ice on it, and gave her a dose of advil to help with the pain. It eventually kicked in and and she collapsed into bed for a nap.

Woo was very contrite and Goose pretty skittish for the rest of the day. While it pains me to see that my little girl was hurt, a little piece of me hoped that this would help them both learn to be careful around doors. We talked about it, and they agreed that they needed to be more careful. Today, we had three close calls with fingers almost getting squished. Apparently this is one lesson that has not sunk in.

Her finger today, poor lil Goosie.