Saturday evening while our friends and their kids were over enjoying some brownies and ice cream to celebrate Josh's birthday I suddenly heard a thump thump thump come from the basement. I automatically knew one of the kids had taken a fall down the stairs and with the first scream as I was halfway there I knew it was Harper. Unfortunately, she was not blessed with being on of those kids with great center of gravity or luck. She is constantly tripping, scraping her knees, falling over, etc etc. I made it down to the basement to see her laying at the bottom of the steps holding up her leg. My first instinct was that she had broken her leg. I scooped her up and carried her upstairs to spare our guests of the screams and to try and calm her down. I wanted to try and see if she could move it and then to try and get her to take off her leggings so I could assess the damage.
Little miss clumsy tends to be somewhat of an over reactor to situations where she is injured. She cries and wales and screams over very small things therefore most of the time I feel like she is crying wolf. This time however I did think it could be something major with the amount of tears and fears she was projecting. After about 10 minutes of holding her and trying to calm her down and slow her breathing I was able to talk her into taking her leggings off to see if her leg was alright. When we finally (and carefully) took them off, what revealed was a good sized scrape, some may call it a small gash, right above her knee. It was bleeding but not gushing and didn't look like it felt too good. After she saw the situation, well, that just freaked her out even more. I contemplated the attempt to put hydrogen peroxide on it but knew that would not even be an option without a complete meltdown (pick your parental battles?).
Super dad Josh came to the room with some Magic Healing Lotion, aka Neosporin, and we talked her into letting us put it on and top it off with a....wait for it....Hello Kitty Band-aid!! Of course nothing will heal an owie better than a picture of that sweet little kitty printed on your band-aid! Again, after much convincing she was somewhat on board and to her surprise, and not ours, the healing lotion + hk bandaid did not provide any pain whatsoever and even protected her leg from her pajamas (shocker isn't it?!).
Here is where the situation gets sticky (pun intended). After one band aid change the following day with extra healing lotion, two days later it was time for the band-aid to come off. I knew it was most likely ready to have that little owie exposed to the air and continue on with its healing process. Somewhere between placing the band-aid on and the time we were going to take it off, an immense fear of peeling off the band-aid set in with her. A fear like I had never seen before ever. A fear as if all the skin on her leg would be ripped off along with that little sticky boo boo protector.
I approached the situation as calmly and rationally as possible. I explained that the edges were already starting to stick up which meant it was ready to come of. I explained that it was time for us to check on her owie and that the healing lotion had done its job and now her body was ready to continue to take on the task of healing. I bribed her with 5 extra minutes to stay up before bed time to cuddle with me. I tried it all. I then went in to try and take it off and I witnessed a scream right in my face that was as if I was sawing off her leg. Josh then ran upstairs to see what on earth was going on and came in and tried to talk her into letting me take it off as well. After about 30 minutes of simply trying to reason with her I knew it was going to end up with me having to just pull the band-aid off and deal with the aftermath.
Screaming, blood curdling screaming, for an entire minute right in my face. Tears were streaming down her face and the poor girl was terrified. But can I tell you this, the band-aid literally peeled off as easily and smoothly as humanly possible. It did not stick, it did not pull her skin, it slid right off but bless her heart she had worked it up in hear head so much that it was going to be painful she was shaking.
I took her in my arms and rocked her while Josh went to go check on sleeping Pax to make sure he wasn't completely freaked out by her screams. Not two minutes later the crazy girl was asking to pick out another Hello Kitty Band-aid to put back on. Well, that did not happen, no. more. band-aids. EVER.
Oh the mind of a three year old. So happy. So sad. So emotional. So confused. So crazy. This little girl definitely gives my patience a run for my money but to see her totally unscathed not 5 minutes after the whole situation at least means she is resilient.
Yikes. =)
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