Until today.
This morning, as I was scrambling eggs and stirring potatoes and mixing probiotics into water cups (AND talking on the phone), my daughter pulled a giant mug of hot tea (that I had just poured) down off the counter onto herself. It was one of my worst mommy moments to date. She was screaming, I was screaming, and my husband (who happened to be off work today...praise GOD!) was trying to rush through a poopie diaper in the other room.
After a call to the pediatrician and a frantic and tearful run through the house to get ready to go, my precious two-year old and I bundled up against the bitter cold to take a trip to the emergency room, where we discovered that she had a second degree burn on her arm. We waited, we snuggled, they wrapped her arm, and they sent us on our way.
And she is okay.
Honestly, I think it has taken me longer to recover today than Ella. She was such a trooper. After arriving at the hospital, she just talked sweetly to the nurses and counted the fish in the emergency room's tank. She was lovely. And I was just swimming, swimming through the guilt and the "what-ifs" and the trauma of the morning.
So I learned a few things today....
Accidents happen. Emergencies happen. They just do. It is life, and it wasn't anyone's fault. Believe me, I was having that "worst mother in the world" feeling, but I know that sometimes, things just happen.
Also, we are beyond blessed. It could have been so, so, much worse. From a huge mug of tea, my daughter had only ONE burn on her arm. It could've been her face, her head, her whole body. How thankful I am that it was just her arm. And we have access to amazing medical care, with insurance and doctors and nurses available immediately. What a privilege.
And life goes on. My sweet, precious, two-year-old had the most traumatic morning of her life today, and guess what? She woke up from her nap smiling, she requested a trip to the library, she giggled and laughed and did her sweet-crazy-Ella-thing and she just moved on contentedly. Ah, the beauty of a toddler.
It is no secret that Ann Voskamp is one of my most beloved authors, and I have learned from her about the "ugly beautiful." The counting and naming of gifts even in the midst of the hard and the ugly.
So today, I am thankful for dressing for my child's wounds. I am thankful for a hospital fifteen minutes from my house. I am thankful for tylenol. I am thankful for arms to hold and comfort. I am thankful for insurance. I am thankful for my responsible six-year old who willingly jumped in to take care of his baby sister while we were changing and preparing Ella for her car trip to the ER. I am thankful that life goes on even after a traumatic morning such as this.
Life is short and good and really, there are many, many worse tragedies in life than this.
So today, even though I wished I could crawl back into bed and start the day over, it still continued on. We still did life and did family and loved and laughed and made our way through the day.
And now, the house is quiet, I have a new cup of tea in front of me, and I am so, very thankful that my one-in-a-million Ella is okay.
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