My husband left to play tennis and it was just me and the baby in the house. I took her upstairs with me to do a few chores and to play with her toys there. As I was straightening up, I gathered a few items in a laundry basket that I meant to take downstairs--one of those items being a USC coffee mug. Now, I try to be an attentive parent. I keep the knives and flame throwers tucked away in high cabinets. I lock up the lethal poisons. But the coffee mug, a breakable item capable of producing sharp shards if broken, I admit I did not foresee. Predictably, my ever-curious 13 month old picked up the coffee mug. Within seconds she dropped it on to the hardwood floor. That's where I found her, standing amidst the broken pieces of the handle, giggling hysterically. I tried to pick her up and move her (and her bare feet) away from the rubble. She struggled to get away from me and flopped on to the floor belly first. Then the crying started. I thought she was just mad that I took her away from the fun. It wasn't until minutes later I saw the blood on her t-shirt.
Panic washed over me as I searched for the source. It didn't take me long to find it. A long, thin, scimitar-shaped cut on her left forearm. I think she must have somehow fallen on a small piece of broken mug. It continued to bleed, though by this point her cries had stopped. She was absolutely fine, but now I was a mess. I couldn't get a good look at the wound without her protests, and so all I could do was try to hold pressure with a washcloth as she wriggled away from me. In the other hand I dialed the number to the tennis house and asked the girl to please get my husband from the court.
Now I'm no amateur when it comes to lacerations. I did several months of ER as a student and a full year of emergency medicine residency, not to mention a number of urgent care shifts in family medicine. I've sutured a LOT of lacerations, many of them on children as young as Siobhan. Most of them much, much worse. In fact, if a mom walked in to the ER on my watch with a cut like the one I was looking at now, I'd probably hand her a couple of gauze pads and some band-aids and maybe a packet of bacitracin. No stitches needed. Hell, this thing didn't even need Dermabond. But did I remain calm and rational? Did I remember one iota of my prior training as a doctor? Not a chance. The sight of my own kid's blood rendered my mind completely blank, save for one thought: You are a bad mom.
I should have been watching her more closely. I should never have been making the bed while she played. How could I have left a coffee mug within her reach? Why didn't I stop her when I saw her playing in the basket? How could I be so careless? Did I even love my own daughter? Bad mom, bad mom, bad mom.
My husband got home and helped me clean the wound (by putting her in the tub and letting her play with her bath toys--genius) so we could get a better look at it. With a better look we could both see it was too superficial to require anything more than local wound care. Relief and shame overcame me. Once the crisis was under control the tears started to flow. I couldn't seem to stop the thought that I had failed her, that I was failing currently, as a mom.
Thankfully I have a co-pilot in this parenting adventure who was able to talk me down. He said to me all the things I would say to him had this happened on his watch--accidents happen, she's at the age where she's going to have some bumps and bruises, no harm done, you did the right thing. Most of all, you are a great mom.
The reassurance was what I needed to get a hold of the self-talk that threatened to send me into a downward spiral. I am a good mom. These things do happen. I am learning, and from now on I'll be more mindful of the things I leave within her reach. I'm a good mom. Yes.
Then I started thinking--why is it so easy for me to beat myself up? How is it that I can be so understanding and compassionate toward others' foibles and so brutal to myself? Why is it that after all these years of mindful practice and self-inquiry that my knee-jerk reaction in a crisis is to self-flagellate?
I don't have the answers. Maybe I'm just hard wired to be critical of myself. All I do is try to catch the thoughts before they take me down the well worn path of disparagement. I'm learning, however slowly, to pay attention to way I talk to myself. Recognizing the messages are the first step to changing them...at least that's the hope.
yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.I am far from samhadi. A million miles from enlightenment. But the practice is making a dent in my samskaras, the negative patterns of thought and action that once dominated my life. I am learning, however slowly, to embrace these moments as learning opportunities. I am even learning to (gasp) have a sense of humor about them. That is tremendous progress, made one day, one practice at a time.
In the end, this experience did turn out to be a victory. Before my baby was even out of the tub, I was smiling. She was smiling. I didn't let the incident take over the day. I was able to, with a little help from my best friend, right the ship within just a few minutes. Baby girl never even seemed to notice. She was as smiley and fun-loving as ever. And me? I'm a good mom. Green, yes, but good all the same.
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