Off of the roof

After a day of accomplishing nothing much, I had finally gotten moving and was cleaning out the Linen closet. I’d just found left over “new baby” supplies from Patches’ birth 4 years ago, when Neighborchild came running in to tell me that Gleek had fallen off the roof of our playset. We have a big redwood playset.
That roof is at least 12 feet off the ground.
I ran.

Gleek is okay.
It was apparent that she was okay within 60 seconds of my arrival next to her. But I still needed to go through all the triage checks to be absolutely sure. There are children who will suffer broken bones with hardly a whimper. It would not surprise me if Gleek is one of these. I was starting all the “move this arm, move that arm” checks when Kiki felt impelled to scold Gleek for being on the roof. Gleek screeched at being scolded. Then Kiki felt that Gleek was not learning the right lesson from this experience and tried to elaborate. I did not have either girl’s attention. I attempted to continue to soothe Gleek and check her injuries, but it was difficult with Kiki declaring that Gleek was just bruised and Gleek screeching at every word that came out of Kiki’s mouth. I knew that all this scolding from Kiki was merely her fear finding an outlet. I tried to explain this to her and get her to stop interfering with what I needed to do. In fact I told Kiki in very clear terms to be quiet. But she stood there and I could tell that she was going to speak again. So I ordered her into the house. I knew it would hurt Kiki’s feelings, but I’d spent 5 minutes arguing with Kiki that I should have spent focused on Gleek.

With Kiki gone I was able to do all the limb checks. Nothing appears broken, although she’ll have some bruises. I was also able to get Gleek to tell me exactly how she fell. She described hitting the swing crossbar with her arm on the way down. This information prompted me to check her armpit where I found the largest of her injuries. She is thoroughly scraped there. She hadn’t even felt it hurting until we found it. She wanted to see the injury, so I brought her inside to a mirror. When she saw the scrape, the enormity of What Could Have Happened hit Gleek. Suddenly she understood that she really could have broken an arm or a leg or her head. Gleek burst into tears and needed more cuddling. I let her talk and snuggle as long as she needed, then settled her to watch Link play a video game.

I then went to talk to Kiki. First I apologized for sending her away. Then I explained to her that when someone is injured there is a process that they have to go through to assimilate what happened to them. During the first shock phase it is important to not confuse the patient with too many people talking. It is also very important to listen to everything because it gives you clues about what to check. Gleek needed to tell her story without interruption for me to know to check under her arm. I explained to Kiki that she was trying to force the realization of danger on Gleek before Gleek was ready to hear it. Later Gleek didn’t need the lecture at all because she made her own realizations. That was even better, because the things we realize for ourselves stick with us longer than things we have merely heard from others. In short I tried to explain how I was handling the crisis and how Kiki had been interfering with my crisis management. Kiki isn’t mad at me anymore. She nodded intently when I asked if she understood what I was trying to explain. I lay even odds that she’ll still interfere the next time Gleek has a crisis. Kiki feels a responsibility to help raise Gleek and I keep having to tell Kiki to back off and let me be the mom. That maternal instinct is a good thing. I just need to help Kiki channel it in ways that are constructive to the sister relationship rather than destructive.

Later tonight I expect Gleek to be achy and sore. She may also need extra hugs and loving at bedtime. Nightmares are a possibility. I’ll actually welcome all those things if they teach Gleek to be more cautious about climbing.
Today could have gone much worse.