Breathe....

Joseph took a couple of years off my life this past Sunday when he burned his fingers and knuckles, forcing us to take our first (and who knows, maybe he’ll be a careful kid, and maybe it will be our last) trip to our local urgent care facility.

He was in such a bad mood after his afternoon nap (this is not uncommon). He should have slept longer, but didn’t, and so he was needy and crabby and whiny and just plain difficult. Tony and I really wanted to make dinner, and my back was tired from holding him for what seemed like years, but if I put him down, all I heard was, “uuupppppp……uuuuuppppp” over and over again. Sometimes this can go on for hours. I’m not kidding.

Finally we had a break when Tony opened one of the cupboards. Joseph let out a squeal as he ran towards all of the cookie sheets and cake pans. But his attention quickly shifted when he saw another drawer open. It was the storage drawer under the oven. What a treasure chest!!! He had absolutely no idea that it was there. It was like a secret room that he had just discovered. And when Tony quickly closed the drawer, he didn’t even seem upset. I guess I should have known that he would be up to something if he wasn’t still asking to be picked up.

That’s when it all happened. Joseph ran over to the storage drawer (did I mention that the oven was ON?) and tried to open it. Apparently (and this is a warning to all of you who, like me, had no idea this could happen) it gets REALLY hot in the crack between the storage drawer and the oven. Joseph started crying. AND I MEAN CRYING.


I’ll skip over the rest of the details about cold water, a lot of tears, trying to remember if we were doing the correct thing for burns, getting scolded over the phone by Joseph’s pediatrician for not having a safe house, freaking out over the painful looking blisters that were quickly forming, putting a coat on, trying to distract him while getting into the car seat, and ending up with gauze, burn cream, and Tylenol 3. My poor baby ended up with second degree burns on his fingertips and knuckles. I know that in the long run, this will seem like no big deal. But for now, it’s a big deal to me. If you ask Joseph about why he is wearing a glove (that’s what we call the gauze he has to wear over the burns), he will say things like “oven. hot. hurt. burn. cry. okay.” If you ask me, I’ll say “baby. cry. innocent. guilt. protect. let down.”