Cherishing the Moment

I had one of those “Why me?” moments last night. It was one of those very public and very awful episodes that every parent dreads.

I had taken all the boys into the grocery store. There was Ethan and Owen, my six year old twins, and William, who is 18 months, was sitting in the cart seat. Now, Ethan and Owen aren’t bad or disobedient in the store, but they do get excited and touch things. I told them to keep one hand on the cart at all times, and if they touched anything, they wouldn’t get to come with me next time.

Everything was going fine, and I was just looking for one more item to buy before we were home free. The cart was loaded up and quite top heavy. It was one of those belligerent ones that has one wheel that doesn’t want to turn. Well, it was just the wrong combination of: too much weight, a stubborn wheel and six year-old boys, (there was one on each side, gleefully rocking.) The cart crashed to the floor! I was just out of reach and couldn’t catch it.

William had gone down with the heavy cart, and had smashed his head on the concrete floor. Owen had his wrist trapped under the cart, and both of them were shrieking and howling. I quickly lifted the cart, so Owen could remove his hand, and picked up William. There was no blood, but Owen’s wrist was already swelling up, and I was worried about William having such a fall on his head.

Two women ran towards us to help. They gathered up the groceries while I tried to comfort my injured boys. Another woman brought ice, and still another put all my groceries in bags so we could leave.

Owen had stopped crying after only a couple of minutes, and all the ladies were telling him how brave he was. I was worried about William though. He cried for about 30 min and afterwards he seemed very tired and non-responsive. I was concerned that he might have a concussion, so we kept him awake, and when we got home I checked out head injuries on the internet.

The information that I read seemed to be in agreement that you should keep the child awake for at least 30 min. If he seemed normal, he could go to sleep after that, but you need to check on the child every couple hours during the night to make sure that the skin colour and breathing are normal.

William still wasn’t himself an hour later. He wouldn’t eat or drink anything and only wanted to cuddle in my arms. We finally enticed him with a popsicle, (takes after his Mom!) and he was chattering and laughing in no time. He later went to sleep without any trouble.

I set the alarm so I could check on William in the night, but it turned out to be unnecessary as he was awake much of the night anyway with a sore tummy, (allergies.)

Today the boys are fine and only have a few bruises to tell of their grocery store tumble. And me?…Well, I hate a scene, but that’s just my pride, (and it could use a few good knocks!) Really, I’m just thankful that my boys are alright and that I live in a place where people are so quick to offer assistance instead of judgement.