mydarlingcurse.com

while packing up the aforementioned Stripey, boo cut herself something fierce which prompted a trip to Urgent Care. i was taping up the bottom of the box with one of those industrial tape dispensers. after taping, i simply set it down on the floor where boo and i were working on getting to box together, she was drawing pictures on it. when i got up to get a pen and card out of my purse i hear her whine a little bit, i ask what’s wrong, turn around and see blood gushing from her hand.

this is where she started to freak out a little bit.

i grabbed her hand and walked her to the bathroom to put it under running water. this looked like a scene from a horror movie. i mean, is there is a certain look to blood swirling with water. the water keeps running, the blood keeps gushing, you think of that scene in Poltergeist with the guy pulling his face off and the chunks fall into the sink. ok, it wasn’t that bad, but still this is my daughter we are talking about!

to say that boo was brave is an understatement. once i turned the water off and got some tissue to put pressure on the gash she had dripped more blood into the sink. but she was starting to calm down. we went back to sit in the living room for a bit with me applying pressure holding her hand above her head. by the time hubbin got downstairs (he was in the shower the whole time), it was still bleeding pretty badly. he tried to tape it up, but she bled right through so i made the decision to take her to Urgent Care.

now, i’m not one of these mom’s that takes their kid in for every little thing. but gashes that don’t stop bleeding after ten or fifteen minutes need to be looked at. thankfully, the urgent care TV was tuned to SpongeBob and boo was content to just sit on my lap, snuggling and looking pitiful. to my amazement, buns was the one to really cheer her up. he was blowing raspberries (his new six-month-old trick) and she found this really funny.

the nurse ended up putting some kind of surgical strips over the wound. three strips because she’s three years old, she got three stickers and now mom needs three glasses of wine. she was pretty tuckered out though when it was all said and done. she had huge circles under her eyes (massive blood loss?) and fell asleep before we finished one book.

i feel like an idiot. it’s basically my fault she got hurt. but i’m really glad i didn’t second guess myself for taking her to Urgent Care. the doctor said even though boo didn’t need stitches, we got really lucky. i know he’s right, but i’m still freaked out.

poop! it didn’t come.

yeah, i’m not a big celebrator of the 4th of july. it’s probably my least favorite holiday. maybe because it’s mandatory. and i’m all about breaking the rules. it’s just loud and hot and not in a good adrien brody kind of way.

tuesday afternoon i pulled a three year old out of the middle of the street during rush hour. she lives across the road from us and most likely has fetal-alcohol syndrome. her mother was inside the house, doors shut tight. i brought the little toe-headed darling home with a heavy heart. she was more than three houses down from her own house. the family car stood in their driveway - a mini-van with driver’s side door and drivers passenger sliding door open.

“I’m glad you brought her back”, the bad mother said with all the emotion of receiving a stale potato.

“I’m glad she didn’t get hit by a car!” i practically shrieked.

then the bad mother then made some comment about how she’s not going to let the little one “play in the car again” since obviously she can “get out of her straps” whatever that means. i walked home quickly needing a drink.

i have yet to completely shake this incident off. i have a three year old. and i’d be mortifiedembarassedbesidemyselfintears if someone brought her home and told me she had been in the middle of the street halfway down the block. i’d kiss the ground her returner walked on! thank you thank you thank you for bringing my darling back. i didn’t get that from the bad mother AT ALL! which is chilling.

the truly frightening part is, is that this type of thing has happened at least once before. but that time the seven year old “older sister” chased after the three year old in the street and pulled her down. other neighbours who saw this incident said the three year old hit her head after being pulled by her big sister, then the bad dad came out and yelled at the three year old.

so after much deliberation, i called Child Protection and got some advice on what to do, not if but when, something like this happens again.

then yesterday i noticed the bad mother coming home, i’m watching her like a hawk now, and she got out and the seven year old got out and they both went into the house. i thought that the little three year old was at a sitters or with a sitter, but no. after over a full minute bad mom came about out of the house, pulled the three year old from the car and then they both went in.

when did it become ok to leave kids unattended in a car? i don’t even let my daughter play around the car when i’m standing right there. and it’s not like bad mom was schlepping in bags or something, she just left her out there.

my mom used to tell me that she wanted to wrap me up in cotton and keep me in her pocket, that way she knew i’d be safe. i thought this completely ridiculous. i kinda get it now.

i think i’m in for a long summer though with this fucking housewiferey, this stay-at-home-mom business. but now that i’ve incidentally saved the three year old, i feel protective of her. and i pray, utterly, that she is safe.

unfortunately, i had to get the crowes tickets through ticketbastard. the good thing about their $9.88 “handling fee” is that i got two songs from iTunes. lame that i’m excited about that, but still…

so i’m shopping around iTunes and i find some Magnet stuff that i had not heard and some live stuff that makes me tingle.

not sure how i feel about the “Zippity Do Dah” rift in the middle of my darling “My Darling Curse”, but at this point i will forgive my darling norse cowboy anything.

so boo has had herself a hefty cough for about a week. it’s tough and keeps her up at night. after about four days of 2 hour bedtime routines and her sneaking in our bed several times a night, i called her doctor. basically, the nurse told me that you can’t, CANNOT give any cold medicine to a 2 year old.

with all the bullshit floating around about recalled meds and overdosing i bowed to the nurse line and basically resigned myself to let the illness run its course knowing, KNOWING deep down it was the wrong thing to do. i wanted to grab my car keys and head to Walgreen’s (or as my Aunt Dot would call it Wallgrins) and read every label of every cough syrup made for kids until i found one suitable to give my daughter. but no, against my instincts, i did nothing. why? because i don’t want a lot of additives and preservatives in my child. nine times out of ten anything you give your kid is only designed to take your money and make you feel better. it does nothing to alleviate your child’s symptoms.

but my god, that cough! it wakes her up. she wakes us up. and in the end we are all miserable. but still, i buy the hype.

yesterday, knowing she wasn’t 100% (but with no runny nose or fever) i took her to daycare. they called around 4PM for me to come get her - they said her temp was 101.4. i vow to take her to minute clinic and get her something ANYTHING to help her feel better. her cough was so bad though that the good people at minute clinic kicked us out. with no lab and no x-ray, they felt she would be better off being treated at urgent care. then they gave me my money back. but the medical person there (who isn’t a doctor) told me that she might need a chest x-ray, that it might be pneumonia. or it could be RSV.

WHAT???!!!

how the fuck could my daughter have pneumonia? it doesn’t make sense. oh wait…her daycare told me it had been going around. they tell me this as i pick her up - that pneumonia and croup and pink-eye are all going around. now i get that kids are filthy little monsters, but shouldn’t daycare tell you if kids have been hospitalized because of the flu? i think so. hell yes i think so.

the good doctor (yes a real doctor) at urgent care confirms an ear infection. boo complained the other night that her ear hurt, but that’s the first we’d heard about that. and he’ll give her antibiotics to treat the ear infection. what about her lungs, i ask. what about her chest congestion and cough. well, he says, we could do a chest x-ray, but with the antibiotic, if it is pneumonia - the antibiotic will clear that up too.

so i don’t know if she has pneumonia or not. either way, her illness is being treated. and i’m thankful for that. but i can’t help thinking that if i had given her some robitussen a week ago, would this have happened?

if i had given her a little bit of cold medicine, keeping my eye on the dosage and watching her reaction, could that little bit have saved her from a ten day load of antibiotics? what’s better and what’s worse? i don’t want her taking antibiotics every time she gets sick because society says you can’t give kids cold medicine. i don’t want to wait a week and let things get so bad and so out of hand that hubbin and i practically sleepwalking and she’s hanging by a thread.

but i know i should trust my instincts, no matter if they go against what the nurse line or society tells me. my daughter means the world to me, why should i trust what other people (other than her father) tell me how i should care for her? that’s crazy!

still, i feel like i failed. i feel like i didn’t do what i knew to be best for her. that kills me. never again. i don’t care. i know i know what’s best for her.

throwing up is gross.