Momma Mondays - First Blood

Seems like every time I sit down to write a blog post about my baby, he senses it and does something to provide me with new material. This time, it was nose diving into his wooden blocks and busting his lip. A new crawler, he can sometimes get ahead of himself. He also doesn't want to sacrifice the toys already in his hands in order to crawl across the room to acquire other toys, hence the occasional tumble.

When I heard the crash on the other side of my desk, I knew it was a bad fall. My husband and I tend to laugh or smile when Knox takes a spill because usually, he is more startled than hurt and he looks to us to determine his emotional reaction. But as I leapt from my chair and circled the desk this morning, I knew before he even started screaming that this fall was different. I scooped him up immediately and felt the wetness of his tears on my shoulder, soaking through my shirt. I shushed him and rubbed his head, trying to lift his face to see where he was hurt. That's when I saw all of the blood.

Seriously. A lot of blood.

He was crying so hard that I couldn't tell if he'd lost a tooth or busted his lip. He clung to me so tightly that I could feel his little fingers dig into my neck and arm. I couldn't do anything at first but walk and comfort him. I took him into the bathroom to distract him with the mirrors in order to take a peek. I couldn't see the cut but the blood on my shirt and bra made me worried. 

So what did I do? I called my mom. Of course I called my mom. With the phone on speaker, I ran cold water over a washcloth to put on his lip and maybe stop the bleeding. I was searching my brain, What do I do? It's just a busted lip, I'm sure. But what do I do? The phone rang and rang. Knox cried and cried. I tried putting the washrag to his lip, but he wouldn't have it. I went to the kitchen and wrapped an ice cube in the cloth and placed it on his lip, which made him berserk. 

So back in the bathroom, I called my dad. The phone rang and rang on speaker as I laid Knox across my knees on my lap (a difficult task as he tried desperately to cling to my shirt). I needed to see in his mouth, though. It was a cut, on the inside of his lip by one of his top teeth. The lip was already starting to swell. The poor baby had tears and snot streaming down his reddening face and looked at me pleadingly to make it all better. What do I do? I held him close again and rubbed his back and hair. I tried to get him to chew on the cold cloth. Nothing doing. The phone rang and rang.

So I called my mother-in-law. She'd raised five boys, so I was confident that she'd know what to do about a busted lip. 

"Hello?" she answered right away. 

And Knox stopped crying. Knox stopped bleeding. In that instant.

The good thing about finally getting to talk to someone was just hearing that I was doing okay. That, in the event of a busted lip, a cold wet washcloth is exactly what I needed. That using ice to stop the swelling was a good attempt. That I'm not an idiot after all. That maybe, just maybe, my maternal instinct is firing on all cylinders.

She did offer one piece of advice I hadn't thought of: a popsicle. She said, "He'll eat that for sure. He won't even realize you're trying to stop the swelling cause he'll love that popsicle so much. And make it fun! You eat one, too, so he sees you doing it and wants to mimic you."

Now, Knox being almost one year old, I can see where this would sound like a feasible suggestion. A popsicle is just frozen juice, for Pete's sake. But Knox is a picky guy and only likes his food finely pureed and given to him on a spoon. I've been working with him every day on eating a Cheerio or graham cracker. I've tried thickening his baby food, offering him a banana or piece of my toast. This kid, with a mouthful of teeth, is just not interested.

But I tried. I happened to have one Flav-or-ice in the fridge (green, not even my fave color). I sat Knox on the countertop to face me and took a bite out of that lime popsicle like it was pure glory in my mouth. A still upset, but calming down Knox watched me warily. I offered him the popsicle and he touched it with his tongue. Game over. He pushed me away with both dimpled hands and reached instead for a much more appealing dirty popcorn bowl, and every time I offered him the popsicle, this baby actually looked offended. 

So finally, I sat him back on his play mat, stroked his back, and wondered in amazement at how quickly that lip stopped bleeding. When he was a baby and would scratch himself with his fingernails, his wounds healed crazy fast; but when he scratched me, the mark stayed for a couple of days. Now, looking at the amount of blood on my shoulder and no sign of blood anywhere on his face or clothes, I found myself thinking of Knox as The Wolverine from X-men whose wounds heal in a flash. Oh man, if my son is a superhero mutant, that's gonna be so boss.

I sat with him for a while and watched his lip swell to the size of a grape while he played with a new toy: plastic measuring cups he found while we were in the kitchen. It was a rough morning to say the least, but we both lived through another milestone: first blood. And hey, I even got a popsicle out of the deal!

Before

After