Bloody finger!

Earlier this week, I was in the kitchen preparing a late breakfast while my busy 11-month-old daughter, Maya, was playing at my feet. She can’t walk independently yet, but she pulls herself up to a standing position quite easily and walks along the cuboards, appliances and furniture. She was playing with her reflection in our new stainless steel stove when I noticed blood on her hands, face and the floor. It was odd because one minute things seemed fine, and the next moment I looked and there was all this blood and I couldn’t see where it was coming from. Plus, my daughter was totally unaffected by the situation; she was happily playing along as though nothing had happened. Weird right?

So, I frantically grabbed her and started searching for the origin of the injury. I finally found that it was coming from a small cut on one of her fingertips. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out  how she had done it, so I began to search along the cupboards and stove for sharp edges and I found that all along the sides of my stainless steel stove are sharp metal edges, upon which Maya surely tried to grip to pull herself up to a standing position and, in so doing, her soft supple skin was cut by the metal edge.

For such a small cut it, was bleeding pretty profusely. I ran it under cold water, then got a cold cloth and started to apply pressure, but to do these sort of things with a small, highly active child is pretty hard and she was fighting me most of the time. Added to this whole difficulty is the fact that Maya likes to suck the first two fingers on her left hand and the cut was on one of those fingers. That same finger has blisters from her sucking and is pretty tender and raw already. And, whenever I thought I’d gotten the finger clean and dry enough that it might stop bleeding, she kept trying to suck it and made it worse again.  I kept at it but the finger kept on bleeding. So, I found a box of fingertip band-aids and cut one of them into a smaller shape so it’d fit her tiny apendage. The band-aid mostly kept her from sucking on the finger and reopening the cut, but she did try to suck the band-aid a few times. Still, she bled through it and I had to apply a second one.

After an hour of not being able to stop the bleeding, I started to worry that the cut might be deeper than I had originally thought, I decided to call the BC Nurses line (811), which is intended for non-emergency medical advice, maybe I needed to do something more (like take her in for stitches–oh no!). So, I called 811. I waited on hold for a long time, most likely because they’re being flooded with calls related to H1N1. By the time I was connected with a registered nurse, the bleeding appeared to have stopped and it was almost Maya’s nap time, so I told the nurse what happened, and asked two questions:

1. Should I be concerned about tetanus because she cut herself on metal?
2. Should I leave the band-aid on while she sleeps (choking hazard, given her propensity for sucking), or keep it off and risk her causing it to open up and bleed again?

Well, the nurses line is totally useless. They said tetanus probably wasn’t a concern because the metal stove wasn’t dirty (which I sort of knew but wanted to ask), but they suggested that I still check in with my doctor within 12 hours just in case–and yet, the whole reason I was calling was so that I wouldn’t have to traipse over to the doctor’s office for a minor cut. Then, in regard to the band-aid question, the nurse I spoke to said that all he could do was give me information and allow me to make the decision myself. He couldn’t give me direct advice for liability reasons. All I have to say is, that is so LAME! What is the point of having a medical advice phone line if they can’t actually give you any advice? These days everyone’s so scared of being sued that they can’t even help you anymore!

This was the second time I have ever called the nurses line, the first time was when I was pregnant and vomiting uncontrollably and wanted to know what over-the-counter medications I could safely take. Needless to say, they advised me to see my doctor, which I would have done if I could have stopped vomiting long enough to get in the car and drive somewhere, which was why I was phoning them!

Anyway, I decided that keeping the band-aid off was the safest thing to do, if the bleeding started again I’d be able to stop it, but if she choked… well, let’s not go there. In the end, Maya did suck on her injured finger when she napped but the bleeding didn’t restart. Her finger is looking pretty raw and sore these days, but is slowly healing.

Note to self: no allowing baby to explore in the kitchen anymore! You’d think the makers of the stove who build-in all kinds of other safety measures on the appliance (door locking device, anti-tip device, etc.), would round off the metal edges so they aren’t a hazard to children… but, alas, my rant must come to an end.

Packing up

My life has been largely consumed with moving preparations for the past few weeks… in particular, packing. It’s turning out to be way harder than I ever imagined to pack and move with a baby, especially a super active one like Maya. She’s at the cruising stage which, for those of you who don’t speak baby, means that she pulls herself up on furniture and then walks along it. She’s also a pretty adept climber. She climbs stairs, and climbs up on pretty much anything else that she can, like moving boxes, our cooler, etc. I’m so busy chasing after her during her waking hours and then when she sleeps I’m usually busy cleaning the house, prepping meals, keeping up with the laundry, and making phone calls for new house stuff like getting our appliances purchases and delivered, setting up house insurance for the new place and about a zillion other things, that I seriously don’t have a second to pack. Not to mention that one of Maya’s favourite activities right now is emptying things–so you can guess what she does when she happens upon a freshly packed box! The only time to do any productive packing is at night after she’s gone to sleep. But by that time, I seriously just want to go to bed myself because I get so tired from the insanely paced busy-ness of the day. This leads me to wonder how the heck I’m going to manage working full-time with a child. I mean, I’ll still be cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry in between chasing Maya around, but I’ll also be working and keeping up with the demands of having my own classroom. How exactly do people do it?!! Any tips or insights would be greatly appreciated at this point. I only have two months of mat. leave left, eek!

Ridiculous High Chair

Maya in her new Tripp Trapp (and covered in blueberries)

We’ve been really practical about not overspending on baby stuff so far, but that has clearly come to an end with my most recent purchase of the Stokke Tripp Trapp highchair. The chair has an ingenious design because it “grows with your child”–yes, I totally bought this advertising line… I know, I know… But in all seriousness, I was really getting tired of buying baby stuff that gets used for about five minutes and then has to be stored until the next baby arrives. The Tripp Trapp is something Maya can use until she’s an adult because it transforms from a highchair, to a booster seat, to a regular-sized, fully adjustable chair. Also, I love it’s slick design, it’s not bulky like other high chairs and it slides right up to the table like our other kitchen chairs bringing Maya to the family table with us. It’s also supposed to be ergonomically good for her, helping with the development of good posture. The big drawback is that it is ridiculously priced at over $300 (Canadian dollars) plus more for all the accessories such as the baby rail and the custom cushion. That said, I don’t regret it for a second! To learn more about the Tripp Trapp click here for an interactive demo.