Wednesday, January 6, 2010

She's a Handsy One

Justin & I have been known, on numerous occasions, to describe our daughter as "handsy." Yes, I know it's not a word, but it's the best description we've come up with for the way that Mal needs to touch or hold everything. It also applies to her abilities to grab things quickly, before you quite realize what has happened. Hold that thought.

Despite the fact that Mal didn't want to nap this morning, my day was off to a pretty good start. I had managed to haul myself out of bed in time to work out & shower before the kids woke up, they had played well after breakfast & it seemed as if we were actually going to leave the house on time. The plan was to drop the kids off at my friend Amy's house, where they would eat lunch & play while I got my hair cut. They even posed for a cute picture for me!
Then, just after I had strapped Jake into his car seat & turned on an Elmo DVD, I heard Mal screaming. I turned around to see her dropping a metal can back into the recycling bin, her hand covered in blood. I left Jake's car door open so I could hear him (the garage was still closed) & scooped Mal up to wash her wound. She allowed me to run some cold water over it but wasn't too keen on me squeezing it with a paper towel to try & stop the bleeding. I'm sure it wasn't actually that much blood, but it certainly seemed like it to me.

Amid Mal's screams, I made a few calls for advice, cancelled my hair appointment & managed to get a band-aid on her finger. After wrapping her hand in a wash cloth & packing tape (thanks Rach!), we headed over to Grammy's to pick her up & then on to the doctor's office. To make this story short, it ended up being a superficial wound that is now healing nicely. My concern was over the fact that it wouldn't stop bleeding & I couldn't see how deep it was, but the pressure from the band-aid apparently did the trick.

Once we returned home, ate lunch & applied a pretty new Cookie Monster band-aid, she was back to her normal self. She'll be happy to show you her mortal injury if you ask, though. (And FYI, that is a tube of neosporin in her mouth, but she was well monitored, & I promise I took it away as soon as she could be distracted.)
Huge thanks go to Grammy for dropping everything she was doing & accompanying us to the doctor. She was, as usual, our Godsend! Also, thanks so much to our pediatrician's office & Dr. McClard for seeing Mal in the waiting room during lunch hour & not even charging us!

Next time, Mal, not so handsy!

3 comments:

Boswell Buzz said...

Not fun, but a happy ending. I bet you strap her in the car first next time, huh.

Lori said...

I hadn't heard the term handsy before your post and then heard it on a show last night as well. It would be nice if I could remember what I was watching, but I laughed and thought about your sweet girl.

AmyB said...

Oh man! You know that stuff can happen SO easily, its scary. We really have to get into the watchful mode now. On another subject, Noah has the exact same sweater as Jake! Too bad they aren't close enough for a pic together! I also tried for the hat but they canceled it for me when they ran out, so we just have mittens!