(no subject)

[rivka]

We're at my parents' house for the holiday, being well-fed and well-familied. Michael and I are enjoying some extra relaxation. Alex, unfortunately, is having a harder time.

This morning, when Michael stumbled out of our bedroom with Alex a few minutes before seven, my mother offered to take her so Michael could go back to bed. Alex adjusted perfectly well, eating a good breakfast for Grandma and then playing quietly on the living room floor. But as soon as I emerged two hours later, she clung to me like a limpet. "Coming ME," (her new favorite phrase) she insisted, every time I moved.

So she was sitting on my hip as I made my breakfast. I heated up a slice of pecan pie in the microwave and swung by to pick up my mug of tea, which was sitting on the stove. And Alex, who has a gas stove at home, reached down and touched the interesting pattern of circles - otherwise known as the electric burner - next to my cup.

I got her hand under cold running water before she'd even managed to overcome her surprise enough to cry. She started bawling. I continued to hold her hand in the cold water, gently prying her fingers open, while she tried to get away. Family converged. I asked my father to determine how hot the burner was, hoping that maybe she was more surprised than hurt. But no such luck - he held his hand a few inches above and announced, "It's very, very hot. She's going to have blisters."

I kept trying to explain to Alex that even though the cold water didn't feel good, it was helping her hand. She kept crying and trying to pull her hand away. My mother had a brilliant idea. She ran some cold water into a bowl and put some ice cubes in it. I sat down at the table with Alex in my lap, and Alex immediately got absorbed in playing with the ice. She stopped crying. For a good five to ten minutes, her burned hand soaked in the ice water as she picked up the cubes, counted them, compared their size ("Little ice, Mama ice"), and splashed in the water.

After she got bored with the ice play she was ready to get down from the table. She ran into the family room and started playing the piano, happily using her burned hand as well as the good one. It looks as though she'll have three small blisters, one each on her thumb and her first two fingertips. She's using the hand without difficulty, although she continued to be whiny and clingy enough that we gave her a dose of Tylenol for the pain.

"Do you think I'm a terrible mother for letting her near the stove?" I asked my mom.

"How do you think I knew about the bowl of ice idea?" she asked me. Huh. Good point.

Comments

You're a good mother

[dragon3.livejournal.com]

Both of our kids learned about hot stoves by placing their hands on the oven window as toddlers. Martha was unlucky enough to be a toddler in Germany where our oven door was only single glazed. She wound up with major blistering all over her palm. Once the immediate trauma was over we were much more upset than she was. It took a few weeks, but eventually her hand was good as new.