8pm, and it was quite a record today, I thought, to have managed to tuck Snowylad to sleep by that time.
There I was sitting to finish off a few pieces of sesame chicken and kai-lan from dinner (I really hate to waste food, I won't if possible). Snowylady was reading the mails and Snowylass decided to climb onto a chair.
And before I realised it, she pushed her weight too far and caused the chair to topple over. CRASH!!!
Happened before. She cried, just like before.
But this time, there was blood under her. Spreading ...
I quickly picked her up and saw she got a deep cut along her chin.
I panicked and it was Snowylady who ordered me to get a towel while she carried our wailing daughter. And the towel didn't stop the bleeding.
Snowylady voiced my worst fears - stitching might be needed.
We got 2 young kids, and the older one was badly hurt and crying had to be carried.
With no other adults we could turn to, we had to call a cab instead of driving to the doctor, so that each parent can carry one child. It was not much use asking a neighbour to watch over the sleeping Snowylad, the little chap would wake up at irregular hours and ask to be nursed.
The GP was crowded. I was in a really foul mood. Snowylass had recovered and happily played with some toys at the GP. Unfortunately, she was careless and did not watch her balance, and stumbled again. She was in no pain, just a normal fall and would have continued playing. But I reacted very strongly, reprimanding her for being careless just after promising to be careful. My real anger was at the thought of her being sewn up.
Sure enough, when we finally saw the GP, not only did he recommend stitching, he also advised us to bring her to the hospital to get a better job done.
So it's off to the hospital. Meanwhile, Snowylad had woken up soon after we got to the GP and totally missing his sleep, despite being sleepy. Mummy got double burden as both kids vied to be carried by her.
And as things would have it, the Children's Emergency at NUH was under renovation and the section merged with the adults'.
After a long wait, we managed to see the doctor. The young chap hoped that tissue glue would suffice, but seeing the shape of the open wound, he reconsidered and asked us to wait while he arranged for an X-ray to see if there's anything else to be concerned about. Meanwhile, no food and drink for Snowylass.
After another long wait, an apparently senior doctor returned. There was only 1 doctor for the children's emergency when we arrived as the rest were tranferred to attend a life-and-death emergency to resuscitate a patient.
Thanks be to God, the senior doctor confidently showed the young doctor how tissue glue would do the job. Snowylass cried and mummy had to lie down with her. I had to carry Snowylad, the poor boy still awake at 11:30pm.
It was past midnight when we got back. I am wondering if I should still let her go to childcare tomorrow. I am wondering if I should ban her from climbing chairs. I am wondering if I should send her for ballet and gymnastics so that she don't fall and hurt herself.
Right now, the family is asleep except me who's taking some time off from picking up the house and posting this.
Hopefully, the worst 4 hours of 2006 is over. Gone. No more.
Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteBTW, in future if you need a warm body, give me a ring. [my numbers are in a PM to you] I am usually wasting my time posting on CHF at all hours of the day including the wee ones. I am not good at much except playing with kids so give me a chance to do something useful every now and then.
Uncle Ur
Ummm, Snowy, please remember you have friends. Please free to call and will there to assist. I know what it is like with little kids and they are very special people in our lives, so next time call, will e-mail my contact number to you.
ReplyDeleteCould see that you have done almost everything right... so no worries, Snowylass should be fine after a good night sleep.
Take care.
Snowy, dont worry, such accidents bound to happen at least once in our life time . just tell u a few stories to make u feel better...
ReplyDeleteMy sis fell into a drain when she was a kid, her head got a deep cut, not sure whether that time there was anything like tissue glue, but she had part of her hair shaved off, stitches were performed on her skull.
Then my kids, we used to stay in a double-storey maisonette, the younger one at that time was only 1 year old, just learned to walk, I was doing some household chores, maybe the boys were playing inside my room which was very near to the stairs, and before I knew it, the younger one ran outside and boom! fell down a few steps of the stairs.. bleeding near the mouth, luckily was only a cut, the bleeding stopped after a short while. (btw, this is also part of the reason why we decided to sell the house and moved to a single storey HDB flat, for safety reasons).
Then another time very high fever with the elder kid, when after two days of high fever, we rushed him to SGH just to make sure he had not contracted any dreadful virus etc, also took a cab there and it was 12midnight. My son was stripped off the clothes and a nurse did a wash for him, then only the fever went away. By the time we were back home, it was almost dawn.
Well that time we were young parents, and we didnt want to take chances, so every little things we go see doctors, if not we will go direct to the hospital. :P
Anyway, now that my kids are older, and we become more experienced, we know when its time to see a doc and when otc medicine is all we need for the illness.
Now we are experts in this area.. lol!
Yes I totally understand. Its not the hard work of looking after children, it is always their health and their well-being that gives me the anxiety, the pain and heartache especially when such incidents arised. No worries, Snowy, ban her from climbing chairs, yes. Ban her from ballet class, not a good idea. I wish my parents had sent me to ballet.. :-(
Thanks for all the encouragement.
ReplyDeleteI could have called my in-laws, but the real problem was Snowylad would wake up at unpredictable times for nursing. I was supposed to bring Snowylass by myself to the doctor, but her inconsolable crying and refusing to let mummy go was a problem.
When I mentioned ballet class etc.,, I was thinking she'll learn to balance herself better through these trainings. I know I want to send her for lots of physically-demanding learnings, but at 3 years old, I'm not ready to see her bleeding profusely.
Decided she was well enough to go to childcare today - just asked her teachers not to let her play anything rough and tumble for the moment. And packed her additional calcium-laden snacks.
A friend of mine who had 3 children (now grown up) said she did not make her house childproof - she house-proofed the children instead. Really took a lot of thinking out of the box, that one.
Thanks again for encouragements.
That's the way to go... houseproofing the children. This is what I would do with my little ones with Autism, we can only teach out little ones to adapt to the world, as it is unlikely that the world would adapt to a child with Autism.
ReplyDeletehouseproofing children is a good idea only if they are old enough to understand instructions... babies especially toddlers.. this is the stage we have to be really careful because this is the time they are most inquisitive, nothing will hold them back. Sharp edges, sharp corners, high stairs, kitchen area especially. Kids are still kids, sometimes they forget. Haiz even adults can be careless, dont mention kids.
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad everything ended well in the end. SB you know where to reach me if you need help or just need emergency transport.
ReplyDeleteThat happened to me as a kid, dad panicked but mom didn't.
ReplyDeleteI was riding a tricycle and scraped my chin on the pavement, I think I can still feel the stitched area.
My closest encounter... (as told by my mom. I'm too young to remember) was getting trapped in a hotel bathtub, and not knowing that one tap has scalding hot water. I turned it on... and when the water started burning, I backed away, and back away.... the bathtub sides too slippery and too high to climb... no escape I screamed....
ReplyDeletewonder what else were scalded?
ReplyDeletekekekeke, my head you'd probably like to say... but noooooo, water fills from the bottom up.
ReplyDeleteso what''s scalded from the bottom? okay... better move this away from Snowy's little patch before we get into a lot of papa real angry.
ReplyDeleteThose who had kids or grew up with them know that no matter what you do, they will invariably get into scrapes of one sort or another. I could regale you with the 'horror' stories (well they were horrifying at the time) but its really more of the same as Moon's.
ReplyDeleteKnowing something about ballet...a study was done and it turned out ballet dancers don't have a better balance than anybody else. Too long to go into here why that is. Better to let her learn martial arts, maybe say Aikido. She will learn to break her fall.
Heh heh, I actually sought MKY's views on that more than a year ago. She recommended Yong Chun. Besides Snowylass' young age now though, the real challenge would be to get this idea to pass grandma.
ReplyDeleteEven if ballet training don't help in getting better steadiness, it'd help her poise. Besides, the little one likes dancing, and ballet training provides good fundamentals, and discipline.