I was having a shower, Hope and Granby were making a puzzle downstairs. They play together every day, she’s rarely happier than when she’s pottering around near her Granby.
Yesterday she tried to climb on a chair, Granby told her not to, she got cross and turned and threw herself at the floor. I heard the bump from upstairs, and then the shriek.
By the time I’d hobbled along the landing Hope was standing at the bottom of the stairs demanding my attention. “Hopey bumped de ed” she informed me between sobs.
She snuggled up to me, had some milky, cheered up and let me look at it. The area just by her cheek bone just below her eye was already beginning to swell, “Hopey climb, Hopey fall’d off bumped de ed”.
She cheered up and spent the rest of the morning playing with a little friend and then she and I had a sleep. She woke up in a good mood and went off to the swings with her father and then came home and had her supper (fish fingers and sweet potato followed by a bowl of blueberries) and sat on my lap while I lay with my wounded foot up on the sofa. We played I Spy with her new book and she drew and drew and drew, pictures of friends, of dolphins, of the moon, of her family, of apples and of dogs (so she told me), she was fine, very cheerful though it was upsetting to see such a large purple patch appearing on her normally flawless face.
I discussed with her Godmother and her Father whether I should take her to A&E but she wasn’t vomiting or upset or listless so it didn’t seem the thing to do.
She had a bit of a restless night, came in with me earlier than normal and then had dreams about horses which kept me awake. We had a big lie in and then she wolfed down a large bowl (on request) of porridge with honey (rather than jam). We went outside and played with pebbles and with acconites in the garden. She was a little quiet but was running about and was cheerful and rushed up to the AA man when he came to repair Granby’s car and said “Hello Simon” to him in a very jolly way.
Her father came and took her to her lovely childminder at lunchtime … normally the highlight of her week, she adores her and the other 2 children there. Maybe it was because I normally take her, maybe it was from feeling sore after her bump or maybe she just felt out of sorts going at lunchtime rather than first thing … but she wasn’t herself, had a huge nap and then asked for more sleep rather than joining in the games and play with the others. My friend phoned, we picked her up and took her round to the hospital. Her purple cardigan and dress matched the shade of the horrible bruise just under her eye.
They saw her promptly, and a nurse and a doctor checked everything and pronounced her right as rain but with just a bit of a bump and said to give her Calpol. She played with the ear thermometer and fiddled with the doctor’s shoes, she didn’t display signs of tiredness as she had in the afternoon but I was glad we’d got a second opinion and that all was well.
We got home, she did more drawing, played with a tiger puzzle and then ate a whole baked potato with tuna and a little chile con carne followed by two yoghurts, blackberries and blueberries. She drank a small lake of water and then played with her Granby and a large teddy bear before having a lovely bath and heading to bed in a pair of lovely pajamas which her little friend had given her yesterday (we’re so lucky that Hope is smaller than her chum and gets all her cast offs).
I am obviously relieved that she’s fine, the doctor even said (when I asked her to repeat the line “and the doctor said, no more monkeys jumping on the bed”) that climbing and falling off things was what children of 2 years old should be doing… but it’s horrible seeing her with a ‘black’ (purple) eye… and it was completely the right thing to take her in to be checked over. The Rambo-esque look of yesterday has eased thankfully and it’s just the bruise which looks as if it will have begun to fade away by tomorrow morning. It makes me want to wrap her up, to keep her safe … something I can do to the best of my ability but something I’ll never fully be able to do. Even tonight she tried to climb on the same chair again …
It dawns, yet again, on me, the responsibility that childminders and teachers have in looking after other people’s children and the whole issue of trust. We’re very lucky that the people I entrust the care of Hope to are remarkable, calm, experienced women who I really do trust. When she phoned earlier to say that Hope was out of sorts I knew that we should pick her up and take her for a check up, I trust her judgment and respected her totally for making the call.
So, there we are, last month, she was pushed over by a playmate and now she has fallen and hurt herself. I hope it ends there. When I was little I fell out of bed and broke my collar bone, then a few months later I fell off a climbing frame and broke the other one. At school I broke my arm and so it continued … what I put my mother through must have been terrible, I’ve found this hard enough to deal with and there was no real harm done.
Right, time to go and give her a little kiss as she sleeps and curl up near by listening to the sound of her silence, the breaths and the funny little chuntering sounds she makes when she’s dreaming or turning over and the odd little mouthy noises that seem to come instinctively when she’s in need of her night time milky.
I guess we’ve been lucky (if the other children at playgroup are anything to go by) that she hasn’t had a nasty bump like this before … poor little soul … and bless her when I was looking concerndly at her last night just before she went to sleep, she rubbed her eye and smiled at me, “it be alright Mummi” and then patted me on the arm. I later went to say goodnight to Granby who was feeling terrible that she hadn’t been able to stop the fall, “it’ll be alright Mummy”, I told her before giving her a goodnight kiss.
