This past Wednesday, Jameson got hurt at school. He was running towards the slide, slipped, and rammed headfirst into it. This resulted in a seriously big bump that required me to leave work and take him to his pediatrician to get looked at.
The entire drive to his daycare had my mind reeling with how bad it might be. When the director called me that morning she had told me to “prepare myself” for how bad it looked, even though he was running around again and seemed to be doing fine.
Needless to say I was not doing fine as I pictured how horrific his head might look.
To try and calm my nerves I called my mom…which turned out to be the opposite of a good idea, as she went over the many reasons why she thinks our daycare sucks and we should pull him out of there.
Thankfully, when I got there he was in good spirits. The bump was large, no doubt about it, but still better than what I had been picturing in my mind after the daycare call.
Even with the relief of seeing that he wasn’t as injured as I had imagined and hearing from his doctor that he didn’t have a concussion, I still felt terrible.
My child got hurt again at daycare. My child got hurt while being in the care of someone else. This wouldn’t have happened if I was home with him, the guilty voice in my head scolded. I should have been there.
Never mind that toddlers trip all the time. Never mind that my son has fallen, tripped, and somersaulted over apparent thin air while in my care. He had never gotten a bump like that, and for that I was racked with guilt.
So what did I do to quell said guilt? Talk to another mom about it to make myself feel better? Journal about it even? Heck no.
I did the stereotypical working mom penance of ice cream and material objects.
One scoop of vanilla ice cream with a mountain of sprinkles and whipped cream at eleven in the morning? Coming right up!
Not one, but two new Halloween books from Barnes and Noble? Sure, you deserve it!
And why don’t we throw in a ten dollar realistic elephant toy since you’ve recently learned the word elephant and it will make mama feel better for having abandoned you at your very pricy daycare all day?
Now here was my injured but happy as a clam child, thumbing through the pages of his new pop-up book with a belly full of sugar.
And there I was on the other side of the camera, feeling guilty still but placated by the fact that there was a smile back on my child’s face.
D came home later that evening and shook his head at the impulse buys I had made.
“He didn’t need any of this stuff, honey,” he said.
“Maybe not,” I replied. But I needed it.
Paige is Parenting 