A Mistake I Hadn't Made Yet

Last night, during that crazy time after naps but before Jeff got home and before dinnertime, I needed to go to the bathroom.  And I wanted to go without somebody following me in there.  So, I went in and closed the door.  Benjamin tried to keep the door pushed open, but I closed it anyway.

Soon he started to cry.  He sounded devastated.  I thought he was just particularly mad that I would go to the bathroom without him.  While I quickly washed my hands, I heard Jonathan saying to him, "Are you hurt?  Are you hurt, bud?"  And Grace was saying, "He's just throwing a fit."  By the time I got out of the bathroom - and I was only in there for a short time! - Jonathan was trying to get a Band-Aid for Benjamin.

As you have probably already guessed, I had closed Benjamin's finger in the door.  He was crying inconsolably, and I put a Band-Aid on the injured pinky finger and tried to comfort him while I held him.  Jonathan and Grace both kept bringing him things to help him to feel better.  Of course, I felt horrible.  I had closed my baby's finger in the door.  Benjamin still doesn't say a whole lot, but he can say "on" and "off" clearly.  He wanted the bandage off!  I took it off and Jonathan asked me if his fingernail was gone.  We looked closely and realized that it was.  It had been hard to tell at first, but indeed, there was no nail.  Jonathan went over by the bathroom and fount the fingernail on the carpet, completely intact.  I guessed that when his finger got pinched in the door, he must have pulled it out but left the fingernail behind.

Then I really felt terrible.  Benjamin was still crying inconsolably.  I got another Band-Aid, put some Neosporin on it, and covered the place where his little baby nail used to be.  We were all trying to help him feel better.  I was holding him, the kids kept bringing things to him - especially Jonathan - and we couldn't figure out a way to help him stop crying.  Finally I put in the Praise Baby DVD that my dear friend, Kathy, gave to Jonathan when he was born.  The music is very soothing, and that helped Benjamin stop crying briefly.  I was shedding some tears of my own.  Benjamin kept holding up his hand and saying, "Off!"  He wanted me to fix his finger and I couldn't.

When Jeff got home, he held Benjamin for me (who was still crying quite a bit) so I could get dinner on the table.  He cried off and on throughout dinner.  His right pinky finger was the hurt one, and even though he's right-handed, he held that hand up and used his left hand to eat dinner.  He kept holding his hand up to me and crying, wanting me to fix his hurt finger.

I felt so horrible for hurting my baby.  The kids kept trying to understand why I was so sad, since I wasn't the one with the hurt finger.  I tried to explain how sad it makes me when any of my babies are hurting.  And I was thinking how, even though Benjamin is my third baby, I still made the new-to-me mistake of smashing his finger in the door.

Amazingly enough, I did have some baby Tylenol in the cabinet, and I decided to give him some before bed.  He had a hard time falling asleep.  I thought that he'd definitely wake up crying as soon as the medicine wore off, but he didn't.  I'm thankful he got some sleep and hope that his poor finger feels better soon.