A Reflecting Mama

May 16, 2022

To Mama,

What a weekend.

Let’s just say it; never did I think we would see the ER in the first year of our daughter’s life. I hoped to avoid it until she was a teenager playing sports and I guess that was a Mama daydream.

To back it up, she fell backwards, from a seated position on the hardwood floor. 8:15 pm on Friday night. Friday the 13th, mind you.

Both my husband and I were just out of arm’s reach and she hit the back of her head. Then there was a moment of silence while she connected all the dots and realized, yes, yes that hurt and she cried.

We both rushed over, scooped her up, and began to apply ice while my husband held her and I checked for a bump I expected to be the size of an orange. There was no bump, well none that appeared in the first couple of seconds after she hit her head.

We calmed her down, reassured her that we were there and she was going to be okay and after an hour or so, we got her ready for bed. Still no bump.

The next day, surely I thought, here it is, we’re going to see a bump, she hit her head so hard. Nothing.

Instead, she completely threw me off and kept napping. She napped her usual time in the morning and then 2 hours later, went down for another nap. Unheard of in my house. She usually spanned 4 hours in between her naps and she is like clockwork.

9:15 am and 3:30 pm…those are her nap times. Certainly not, 8:45 (napping until 10:30) and then being tired again at 11:30.

So thinking of course, it’s all related to the spill she took the night before…I insist there is something wrong and we make plans for our first trip to the ER.

Long story short; our daughter is perfectly fine. They examined her, listened to our recap of previous night’s events and cleared us to go home without further testing or scans. Cue a big sigh from this mama.

This was an interesting trip for us, as a family & it was the antecedent for so much reflection from this mama.

Some tidbits: my husband and I initially had different viewpoints on whether a trip to the ER was warranted. She could really just be more tired than usual- it’s been an off kilter, off schedule kind of week. So reflecting mama point 1: I did not listen to or respect my husband’s wisdom in this moment and continued to insist something was wrong, hence the trip to the ER. I should have heard more of what he had to say, the experience he had and taken a breath before getting in gear to go to the hospital.

Would I have stayed home? Probably not. No. However, I would have heard what he had to say and make the decision together to go.

Change: there’s been a lot of changes in our house recently- transforming our backyard, gutting and completely redesigning our downstairs space, responsibilities have shifted in the house and schedules have been rearranged. Reflecting mama point 2: I know “change” in and of itself is a trigger for my husband and I did not address it as things started to shift. When I overrode his decision to “wait & see” with our daughter, I not only cut him at the knees, I fueled his difficulty with things changing and to his point; I didn’t listen or trust his opinion; as someone who know’s and loves our daughter as much as I do.

Reflecting mama point 3: It’s okay to cry. I came home from the hospital the other night and cried. Cried because I was thankful nothing was wrong with our daughter. Cried because I hurt my husband’s feelings. Cried because I was so consumed with my own feelings of being run down and burnt out that I didn’t clearly see the change-trigger that was happening in our own house and get in front of it.

Reflecting mama point 4: So we talked it out. My husband and I, while our daughter was asleep (yes, again- this time, on time in her crib for the night). We talked about the changes and turning towards each other instead of isolating and carrying out our own thoughts for what is best.

We’re all getting better; our daughter is just about back on her regular nap schedule. Our communication is starting to improve and with it, a lot of laughter. We missed that, as everything started to change around us. We changed too and we didn’t appreciate each other or like who we were becoming to each other. We had to sit in these feelings, really own them and talk, learn and begin to move forward.

We got this.

With love,

a reflecting mama