My two children could not be any different. We have often said that if our daughter had been born first, she would be an only child.
Our son was a very easy baby. He didn’t cry all that often. He slept through the night on his second night home from the hospital. In fact, he slept more than we thought he should. He rarely cried when he was wet. Which led to some very heavy diapers.
Our daughter was not so easy. (And still isn’t.) I told the story a few weeks ago about her first trip to the ER. Remember? She ate glass. It wasn’t her last.
Around the age of 2 ½ or 3 she decided she did not like jeans. Would not wear them. If we laid out jeans for her to put on one of two things would follow. 1) She would lay in the floor, kick, and scream or 2) she would just get out and put on different pants. Actually the end result was almost always option #2. Sometimes preceded by the melt down, sometimes not.
One particular day we were getting ready to run some errands. For one reason or another our precious toddler had to change her pants. I went to get some pants and came back with jeans (Mistake #1). I laid her on the couch and changed her diaper. Then I started to put the jeans on her. The screaming started almost immediately. She began to twist and turn and squirm every way possible to prevent the jeans from going on her legs.
I tried to reason with her. Nothing. I tried to explain that she had no other clean pants. Screaming. Finally, I decided to be just as stubborn as her (Mistake #2) and put the jeans on by force if necessary. At some point the squirming turned to thrashing. Just as I was about to get the jeans on her she jerked violently to the left. Before I could catch her she was off the couch. She hit the wood floor headfirst.
Her crying intensified a little, but she was in full meltdown before the fall. Misty asked if she was OK. I checked her over and told Misty she was fine, just mad. After several minutes she settled down a little. Finally I got the pants on her and we set out on our errands (Mistake #3). She finally stopped crying on the way to Lowe’s.
As we walked through Lowe’s we were mostly just relieved that the crying stopped. She still seemed angry, though. She was quiet. I offered her a snack. She refused. As we continued to shop we noticed she was sinking lower and lower in the seat of the shopping cart. Misty and I began to wonder if she was OK.
We finished up our errands and went back home. By this time we were getting more than a little concerned. Misty suggested we call the hospital to get their opinion. Suddenly we didn’t have to wonder anymore. As Misty was talking to the ER nurse to see if they thought we should bring her in, our poor concussed daughter vomited.
We immediately hung up the phone and headed for the Lourdes Hospital. We didn’t have to wait long to get into an exam room. They did all of the normal head injury assessments. All the while I sat there holding my little girl feeling guilty. They took her to take some x-rays. The tech said it would be better if we didn’t go in, so Misty and I stood in the hall. I paced back and forth tried to not break down as I listened to my little girl scream just on the other side of the door. When she came out her first tearful words were, “Can we go home now?”
The x-rays looked fine. But there was more bad news. The doctor told us she needed a cat scan to make sure there was no serious injury to the brain. After the x-ray room experience we were terrified. We explained to our exhausted, scared little girl that the doctors needed to do one more test.
We told her they needed to take a picture of her brain, which she thought was kind of cool. We explained that she would have to lie perfectly still while a machine went around her head and took pictures. When we told her one of us could go in with her, she seemed to calm a little. When they told us the machine was a little loud, the calm melted a little.
Misty carried her into the CT Scan room and I, again, waited in the hall. As I stood there I waited for the screaming to start. After a while I heard a noise coming from inside the room. It wasn’t screaming, it was more like a roar. I realized this was the roar of the CT scanner. I expected screaming at any moment. It never came.
After a few minutes the roar ended and the door opened. I carried our daughter back to the exam room and we waited. Misty told me that our brave little girl lay perfectly still just as she was told. Perfectly still, that is, except for the shaking. The results came quickly and everything was fine. Just a mild concussion.
When we left the hospital we went straight to Wal-Mart or a toy store, I don’t remember which. I, also, cannot remember what we bought her. At that moment, I probably would have bought her a pony if she’d asked for one.
I learned some lessons from that day. A 2-foot fall onto a hard wood floor can cause a concussion. It’s never a good idea to argue with a woman when it comes to clothes. The most important thing I learned from that day? We’ve got a long 15-16 years (at that point) ahead of us. If she can pitch a fit and wreak that kind of havoc at 3 imagine the trouble in store for us in her teenage years!
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