Baby's First Stitches

But this isn't a post about that.

Instead, this is a post about what a jerk I am.

On Saturday night, Matt, Josh and I were just getting in the car to go to my favorite Christmas party of the year when my aunt and mom started yelling out to me to come back in the house because Jack was hurt. Mom had managed to carry him to the front door by the time I got there and all I could see was blood all over his face. I had no idea where it was coming from. His mouth was covered in blood, his cheeks, his chin and nose. It wasn't until mom moved her hand that I saw the gash in his forehead and blood started pouring out. As I grabbed Jack from her, I pushed her out of my way and said, "why does this always happen at your house?"

I regretted it instantly. It just...came out...in my panic over his injury. I saw a flashback to the time I was called over to their house after Avery fell in her walker and had blood coming out of her head. I had a sick feeling in my stomach and his screaming was making my heart hurt. My brain ceased to operate correctly and failed to prevent me from saying a really insensitive thing to the woman who loves my babies as much as I do.

At that point it was hard to tell what I felt worse about: Jack's injury or my mom's.

As Matt and I drove to Urgent Care with Jack whimpering in the back seat, I talked to him about how awful I was for saying that. He kept telling me that this was a freak accident and could have happened anywhere. He reminded me that Jack is a boy and this won't be our last trip to Urgent Care. He talked about how scars add character (and he may have said something along the lines of, "chicks dig scars" but I tried to block that out of my head). All that is to say that he didn't make me feel better about my comment to my mom.

But how could he make me feel better? There was no defense to what I said. When the going got tough, I turned into a huge jerk.

I apologized to her profusely. She clearly loves my children and takes great care of them when we aren't around. This was a freak accident. Jack had tripped over a pillow from the couch that fell on the floor and ended up hitting his head on the corner of the end table in the living room. What are the chances that he would hit in that exact spot? Of course there wasn't anything that she could have done to stop it as it was happening. We had only been out of the house for 60 seconds so it wasn't like she was letting him run around and party while she napped in her room. I know all of this. I knew it then, too. I just don't know what got into me to say such a stupid thing.

Jack is feeling fine now and will get his stitches out on Thursday. The other good news is that my mom understood that I was out of my mind when I said that to her. She was big enough to tell me not to sweat it. She even kept the kids for us again while we went out with the people from my office for our Christmas party tonight.

They just don't make them any better than my mom.

(edited to add: I won't mention that Avery accidentally shut Jack's fingers in the car door while we were at the Christmas party tonight. I mean, how much abuse can the woman take?) *wink*