D is for Dangerous

So as I mentioned in my quick takes on Friday, little Lemon (this is what Charlotte calls Liam and it has stuck) spent many a night last week refusing to sleep due to an ear infection. This was my first real test since the Ogre left. As I’ve mentioned, the Ogre always takes the night shifts. I don’t deal well with losing sleep, and he likes me cheerful, so he takes nights and I take mornings. Even if they come at 4 am.

But the Ogre is in Vegas, and I’m here, and Liam needed me to rock…him…for…hours…, and my other minions needed me to put on a happy face when they woke up. My parents helped, which was awesome, and I think I managed pretty well overall. Well, my face was perhaps less cheerful smile and more pained grimace, but there were no major melt-downs and I only fell asleep sitting up in the rocking chair three times.

There was one morning, however, when I completely failed to hold it together whatsoever.

This was in the third night of our ordeal, the worst night, when Liam didn’t go to sleep until midnight and woke at three and didn’t go back to sleep until five. Then, of course, charming Charlotte woke up at ten till six and proceeded to jump repeatedly on her older sister until said older sister woke up reluctantly.

I was so tired, though. So very tired. Less than four hours of sleep were not treating me kindly. And so, like any responsible mother, I ordered the girls to just play quietly until Liam woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Of course, it wasn’t a deep sleep, because I had to occasionally wake up enough to whisper vague threats when they got too loud.

But then, about 6:30, I woke up to Sienna hovering over me with an extremely anxious look on her face.

My mommy senses tingled, and I reluctantly propped up on one elbow to ensure that I wouldn’t drop off to sleep in the middle of her explanation. She whispered something that made no sense, but sounded like, “I got one of those letters stuck on my finger.”

I had no idea what this meant until she showed me her hand. Sure enough, there was the lower-case wooden letter D stuck securely around her ring finger. I gave it a tug, noticed that Sienna was wincing in pain, and sat all the way up. Inspecting her finger a little more closely, I saw that the circle part of the D was wedged tightly around her finger, that pulling on it made it move not at all, that all the flesh on her finger above the letter had swollen and turned a dusky red color, and that my child’s face was pale and her lips were trembling.

Obviously, she had had this letter stuck on her finger for a while. At least fifteen minutes. And she was scared. And it was stuck good.

I swung my legs out of bed, scooped her up, and took her into the bathroom where I sat her on the bathroom counter and pulled out my jar of coconut oil. (Coconut oil is a miracle, by the way.) I coated her finger liberally and, confident that the lubrication would do the trick, pulled hard.

Sienna cried out in pain as I nearly dislocated her finger. The letter did not budge. I began twisting gently, trying to just get the letter to move enough to get some of the oil underneath it. I was sure that if I could just move it the slightest bit, just get it over the worst of the swelling, it would pop right off.

But the letter had no intention of moving. I ran water over it, hoping to loosen it a little. Nothing.

Beginning to feel a little desperate, I took Sienna, Charlotte, and the now-wide-awake-and-hysterical Lemon into the kitchen and rummaged through my mother’s scissors, looking for the sharpest pair. I mentally ran the risk of trying to slice through the letter with a Cutco knife, but discarded said option in favor of leaving Sienna’s finger intact.

I put Sienna on the kitchen counter and began to saw away with the scissors. The letter D was one tough cookie. It bent side-to-side under the pressure of the scissors, making Sienna blanch and gasp in pain, but the scissors didn’t leave a mark on it.

Finally I gave up. I pulled Sienna down from the counter, and she promptly ran into the bathroom and began throwing up. I held her hair back and tried to comfort her, but I kind of felt like throwing up myself. Her finger was double its normal size and was now beginning to turn a deep, ominous purple.

It was seven o’clock by that point. By my calculations, the letter had been on her finger for nearly an hour. At this point, my options were to wake up my parents and ask for their help, or put all three kids in the car and go to the ER.

I chose the less expensive option, and took the stairs two at a time. Feeling horrible about waking my parents up half an hour earlier than they usually got up, I knocked tentatively on the door. When my mom opened it, bleary-eyed, I swiftly explained the situation and then went back downstairs.

Two minutes later, she and my dad came down the stairs. She immediately put Sienna on the counter next to the sink and began coating her finger in soap, trying to coax the letter off. I didn’t have much hope for this option, seeing as how I’d already tried the same thing, but figured I’d let her try anyway. In the meantime, my mom and I studied Sienna’s face.

Her face was bone-white, drained of all color. Her lips were paler than I’d ever seen them, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of her face. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened.

My mom, still working on the letter, was calm and reassuring. I, on the other hand, was shaky and panicked. Three minutes later, the letter was off Sienna’s finger and on the counter, and the color was slowly coming back into her face.

There were many lessons presented to me throughout this whole experience (and by presented to me, I mean, said to me by my mother afterward). When your children are without supervision, even child-safe toys can become dangerous. When your child is frightened, even if they have a good reason to be, remain calm and reassure them. When something is stuck around a child’s finger, continue working at it slowly and gently. 

This, however, is the lesson that I took from it: when you decide to sleep in and neglect your offspring, make sure all objects that can be stuck on fingers are put away.