A busy boy and a curling iron

One can probably surmise by the title that the two above mentioned items are not a good mix. I was getting ready to go to John's big work celebration last Friday, in my normal hurried fashion, and in a split second, Noah darted into the bathroom and grabbed the barrel of my very hot curling iron. You always know it's bad when it starts as a silent cry. A little piece of my mommy-heart broke. He, of course, is at the age where he will not let me ice anything, so we ran it under some cold water and went about our business. Very red, but no open skin or blister. We're ok.

Later in the evening, I scooped him up and to my horror, there is a massive blister covering his index finger down into his palm. Another little piece of my mommy-heart breaks. And the guilt sets in. Why did I have the curling iron within his reach???? Believe it or not, my older boy never messed with it. I never even worried about it.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. We awake after a miserable night's sleep. Noah was having another bout with his intestinal infection and in a lot of pain. Since we're going to the pediatrician anyway, I figure we'll have him take a look at the blister and patch him up. During our hour-long wait to see the doctor, the blister rips open. Underneath is a red mess of layer upon layer of peeling, burned skin. This is bad. Doctor very kindly assures me that curling irons are the second most common cause of serious burns on children, only after microwaves. And then proceeds to tell me large areas of the burn are full-thickness or 3rd degree burns. A HUGE piece of my mommy heart now breaks. The scrubbing and trimming away of dead skin leaves both of us in tears and Noah beside himself. First bandage is too tight and so we do it all over again. Really? At this point I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. I have my orders to keep it well bandaged and covered in ointment so as to minimize the scarring, which could result in a permanently bent finger. Smashed mommy heart. So we leave the doctor's office with prescriptions for his tummy medicine, medicine for the sores he gets in his mouth (don't even get me started on that one) and for the silver sulfazine ointment that will be required for the daily bandage changes. Silver lining, pun intended, is that this ointment has a long shelf life and doctor highly recommends that I hang on to it since I have two boys. Great.

So, today is Thursday and after several screaming, tearful bandage changes, we've finally gotten it down to minimal squirming. We also went and saw my friend Emily from work who is a hand specialist who makes him a very cool splint to keep his hand open. And it's a good thing because it's already getting tight.

Although it feels like such an ordeal right now, I know that a year from now Noah won't even remember it ever happened and the pieces of my broken mommy heart will have healed. Thankfully we know and love a God who heals little ones who grab hot curling irons. And, I am also reminded that it could have been much, much worse and am truly thankful that a finger and hand were the extent of it. Oh, and I haven't turned the curling iron on since then.