Sadie Walks! And so far, it Sucks.

Hi All
Yeah, so it's all true. When they say don't push your crawler to toddle because a world of hurt opens up, they aren't lying. And the hurt isn't always just felt by the kid. Well maybe the literal hurt is, but the psychological is a whole other story.

Sadie had only been walking (really walking, not that crawl, stand, drop, couch surfing, but serious from one end of the room to the other walking) for a few days when she fell on the corner of my neighbor Linda's coffee table. Already used to the sudden backwards collapse to her butt, I didn't take much notice until I saw red. As in blood. A lot of blood. Gushing from her nose. I grabbed her and we laid her down on the counter in the kitchen and all I could say over and over again was, 'It's bad. It's really bad. It's bad. Really bad'. Linda only lives two houses down so I grabbed screaming Sadie and ran to my car with Linda trailing me. I was shaking as I handed her over to get my keys from the house and an ice pack and cloth to sop up the blood. Linda was smart enough to grab a sippy cup, a diaper and her sweater. We put her in the car and headed out. By then she had stopped crying, but she was dazed and I could see a serious split above her lip, right beneath her nose. We drove to the Woodacre Fire Department and had five firemen surround us within minutes (firemen are always the nicest guys). An amazingly calm (was it shock?) Sadie erupted in to new screams when one of them reached a gloved hand towards her face to make sure she still had all her teeth which answered that question pretty quickly. I turned in to a puddle too when I had to recount what happened to a lady with a clipboard. Everyone agreed she needed stitches so we went to Marin General.

What a nightmare. The waiting. The keeping her entertained with the fish tank, crappy crackers and non-organic (the horror) milk from the vending machine. The stupid moms who allowed their toddlers to interact with Sadie without telling me they were there because their kids had high fevers--if I hadn't asked I never would have known. Jeez.

However, that was nothing compared to watching a 16 month old get stitches. First of all, I had to keep a band-aid soaked in some sort of numbing (but stinging) solution on her lip for FIFTEEN minutes. To Sadie, and too me, and to the other sick (migraine lady, mountain bike accident lady, car accident teenage boy) patients in the room listening to her wail, it was ETERNITY. I have never done so many animal noise imitations, funny faces and silly dances in my life. Rocking her while pacing was a good distraction but there was some sort of drunk driving situation and police were everywhere and so they made me stay in the room.
Then the stitches. They tightly wrapped my puffy faced exhausted kid in a sheet, like a burrito, with just her red, freaked out face peeking out. Then they laid a sterile towel over her face with just a hole for her mouth--which was the worst kind of torture because Sadie can't even stand it when a shirt lingers over her head a bit too long while getting changed--and then they shot the wound directly with a needle to numb it and sewed her up--and the whole time she is screaming, 'Momma Momma Momma Momma!', and all I can do is hold her and tell her it's going to be OK and do my best to ignore this instinct telling me to whack the cavalier, calm as can be, seen it all, this is no big deal ER doctor across the face for coming near my kid with anything sharper than a crayon, grab my kid and get the hell out of there. He kept telling me she couldn't feel a thing, yet every time that fish hook looking needle pierced her tender baby skin she let out another wail and I had to fight the urge to push him back against the wall.
Ok, so thank GOD Linda was with me. Greg was in the East Bay at a meeting and walked in right when it was all over (which is a probably a good thing--I mean if I was wanting to whack and punch that doctor, who knows what poppa bear Greg would have wanted to do). He barely recognized her swollen from crying face.

But here's the thing--right after it was done, I was so grateful. Because it was so awful, because it felt like an eternity watching my child get two (yeah, a measly two) stitches, I thought of the moms out there like my friend Amber whose daughter had open heart surgery when she was just three months old ( I think, maybe older, but still a little baby!). Moms whose kids have cancer, break bones, lose limbs in tragic accidents, have incurable illnesses, who are premature and hooked up to machines for months, unable to be held, soothed and nursed. I am so grateful that it was just those two little stitches.

Now all I do is watch over Sadie like a hawk as she blunders about like a baby monkey, with protruding belly, arms up and out for balance, scooping her up if she shows just a hint of faltering. Oh how I miss my little crawly baby. My safe little low to the ground bug.

The stitches came out on Tuesday.

Here she is post doctor visit, roaming about the courtyard, which I wish wasn't made of bricks but soft, silk covered, marshmallow tender cotton balls.



Love,
Rosalie