Bad mother

I must be a bad mother

My youngest is always getting into scrapes and hurting himself. Hes lucky he has never done himself much damage. If he hurts his arm I tell him to waggle his fingers...they work hes ok. If its his leg waggle your toes. If its a cut clean it up and put a plaster on it. I can't be doing with hospital visits unless I have to. I think in the last 20 years I have taken one or other of my boys to the hospital perhaps 5 times. First DC when he was around 4 he was running along the footpath beside Tesco over by The Other City, we had been to the weekly bootsale across the road, its one of the biggest in the area and very popular. As he was running he ran into a chain that was strung across the path stopping people from taking a short cut into the store carpark. the chain was across his chest he fell backwards and hit his head. Later when SF was at the pub DA was going a bit funny going in and out of consciousness, I managed to persuade SF to come home to look after baby whilst I took DC to hospital for check up. By the time he was seen he was ok.

Next it was OJ. Between them OJ and DC had worked out that everytime there was an accident whilst I was potty training OJ I would clean up the spill with a trigger bottle of detergent. I was upstairs with baby ET when DC and OJ decided to use the cleaner. DC managed to spray it in OJ's eyes. I bathed his eyes and rang the eye hospital who told me to bring him in. They said I had done such a good job of bathing his eyes he was fine.

Ah I missed one. We were at a social club as guests of friends when OJ fell asleep on the floor he must have been about 18 months, SF took hold of his wrist and yanked him up by the arm dislocating his arm. Ok so now we had the dilema do we take him to the hospital in the nearby Other City or drive passed where we live to get to the hospital in The City which would be nearer to our home but further away from where we were. The staff were great and his arm was soon popped back into position.

The worst occasion was again OJ. I was on the sofa by the window having a turn on the boys pokemon gameboy gold, OJ wanted a turn and sat on the back of the sofa for some reason he leaned back against the open window........one minute he was there by my shoulder the next he was gone!! THen a scream and we all looked out the window in time to see OJ running in through the front door and up the stairs he was about 9 by this time. When I got to him he was holding a towel under his arm. When I took it away I could see that he had ripped open his arm pit. He had caught it on the handle of the window. I managed to get SF home from the pub to stay with the other boys whilst I took OJ to hospital. He was made a priority case. It took an awful lot of injections to numb the area so that he could be stitched back up. I think he was most relieved that the football season had ended the week before as he was the team goalkeeper.

The last time I went to the hospital with one of my boys was when JA thought he had broken his arm, this time I took him to Haslar the military hospital. He had badly bruised his arm but a few days rest it was fine again.

Anyway the reason I began this post was JA has been in a lot of scrapes in the last couple of months constantly covered in bruises and cuts. Last week when I collected him from the village where all his new mates live he slid down the grass bank by his mate B's house. As he slid down the bank he hurt his shin on a twig. When we got home he cleaned it up and put a plaster on it didn't even bother to show me. Yesterday he told me that he had pus coming from his cut. I told him to show me but as it was covered up with a plaster and trousers he said he would show me later. I forgot all about it until last night when I saw him taking the plaster off. I had a look at his leg. there was a black lump under where the plaster had been. Gently I ran my nail across this to see if I could lift the cut to remove the dirt that was still there. I pressed on either side and to my surprise something long and thin shot out. Closer inspection I found that it wasn't dirt but 5 very big splinters. I managed to get them all out and cleaned him up. the first one has left a puncture hole but the rest is ok. His leg seems to be fine now just weeping a little pin tinged fluid when he presses his shin close to the wound.

I am so pleased he is ok but I feel really bad for not taking more notice earlier.