tough-skinned

So I was thinking the other day; it's a good thing I've been eating sleeping and breathing all this house stuff and we don't have a ton going on that I'm missing out on recording here.
The kids have been awesomely cooperative and for the most part have been able to be shooed outside or playing well on their own. We've had random playdates and been on the go go go, but nothing of too much interest or too pressing or out of the ordinary to report.

Although Sawyer decided to change that up for me yesterday.





















My friend Joy called me up and offered me some kid-free time to get stuff done; they were spending the morning outside, and my kids were welcome to hang over there. Of course my kids had a great time playing with their two friends and the dog; more fun than me ignoring them with a paintbrush in my hand. Great fun until I came to pick them up after lunch...

When I got there Joy had Sawyer upstairs in the bathroom cleaning up a big five-inch gash on the back of his thigh. It was ugly. He was brave though and four band-aids later, and lots of hugs and kisses, he was back to playing.
But that's not all.

These friends have a very laid-back 85lb yellow lab who has always been great with the kids... they have their own three year old and one year old who are by no means gentle, and Cody has always been great with them, no worries. I have to admit they leave their kids un(der)supervised with that dog more than I would be comfortable with, but I've seen the torture loving that toddler has put that dog through and he takes it all in stride. My own kids are completely comfortable with Cody; we're at their house regularly and they live close so Cody's visited us here and hung out in our yard with the kids just as often. Great dog.
But combine the unpredictability of kids with the unpredictability of animals... and even the greatest dogs do not put me at complete ease when there are kids involved. I think I'd become a little lax on that and yesterday reminded me of it loud and clear.

Cody was laying near me when Sawyer came up and straddled his back. I've seen Sawyer do this before, with no problem, though I've reminded him always not to sit on the dog. Cody was looking a little agitated this time and just as Joy said, "I don't think Cody likes that right now Sawyer", I heard just a hint of a growl from the dog. At the same time, Sawyer got up to get off of him. I don't know if he kneed him wrong or if he stepped on his tail or if he just wasn't getting off fast enough, but suddenly Cody snapped around snarling

and bit Sawyer right in the face.

It all happened so incredibly fast... yet so painfully slow. The crazy thing is both Joy and I were basically within arms' reach and yet both of us were essentially helpless, it happened so quickly. I think when we realized what was about to happen/happening, Joy did speak out "Cody!" and I really think that saved this from being a real bite. Even though he had his mouth completely open and actually had Sawyer's nose mouth and chin in his mouth... he barely drew blood. I think having us there refrained him from actually biting. Maybe he wouldn't have anyway. Maybe he knew and had complete control and was just giving a serious warning. As it was, he had his teeth on him and gave just enough pressure to bruise and barely puncture... I honestly shudder to think how it could have been different if Joy or I were not right there.
I cannot get the image of my child's face in a dog's mouth out of my head.

Sawyer was, of course, a wreck. I don't think I've ever seen him so upset. Ever. It didn't start bleeding right away, so we didn't think he'd even broken the skin. Until a minute later when I picked Sawyer's head up from my shoulder to look at it again and there was blood all over my shirt. There were two little perfect puncture marks where the bottom canine teeth were... right on Sawyer's chin. I sat with him for a long time with a wet paper towel on his chin, trying to calm him down. He was a strange upset... not the usual owie crying... he was just so scared and I think shocked. I hated feeling that he was feeling that. I was powerless to comfort him. He just kept saying he wanted to go home and he wouldn't let me put him down.

We sat for a bit longer, letting Sawyer get calmed down and making sure it wasn't worse than we thought. We finally went to head out about 20 minutes later and before leaving I tried to get Sawyer to say good bye to Cody. The dog was laying calmly by the front door and I tried to get Sawyer next to him with me so he could say sorry to Cody for scaring him and for Cody to "apologize" to Sawyer... I think this was completely one of those situations where you can't really blame either of them. Just have to learn from it. At any rate, I don't want Sawyer to be scared of the dog. He needs to be cautious and aware... a healthy fear of animals, but I don't want him to be physically scared of Cody from here on out.
Sawyer would have nothing to do with it though. He started crying again and said he just wanted to go home and he wouldn't let me put him down.

And then the whole rest of the day, Sawyer would randomly say (and be on the verge of tears while he said it) "I don't ever want to go to Hannah's house ever again!".
Poor guy. It was a rough morning.














So now he's got almost a perfect circle of teeth marks around his face... two bigger bruised puncture marks on his chin and a little trail of slightly red bruised spots all the way up around in a circle around his mouth. It's lovely. I actually cringe when I look at him. It's really not all that bad, and I'm sure you won't even be able to see it in another day or two. But I see it. I see those little bruised dots and I see the jaws of a big dog on my little boy's face. I also see what it could have been. If Cody had actually bit down or if he had torn the skin... I see how things could have changed in that split second. And that makes me cringe. It makes me sick to my stomach actually.
I'm just so glad it is what it is. So thankful.

Now matter how well you think you know your dogs... no matter how much you think you can trust them OR your child... please be aware. And be right there. It only takes a split second.

what single sight has freaked you out the most?

for me; easy answer.
Tears of blood rolling out of my baby boy's eyes.

Real, honest to goodness tears. of. blood.
Freak-Y!

Want to hear the story?

Ryan was on his way home from work (stopping by Best Buy to bring us home the best thing ever:expecting a "nice relaxing last fertile evening at home". Yes, that is a direct quote from him.

What he got instead was an evening of this:
Sawyer and Savannah had been wrestling in the family room yesterday afternoon. I was sitting on the couch, not paying much attention to them (I was busy with my lists!!), when out of the corner of my eye I saw Sawyer do a face plant into the carpet. It was one of those falls where everyone freezes because you know it's bad. The silent cry.... big breath... scream/cry.
As he picked himself up and I got over to him, I saw his pacifier was on the floor where his face had been and I assumed he had it in his mouth when he fell, so I immediately began searching his mouth and teeth for injuries. Nothing. In fact, I saw no bumps or scratches on his face or in his mouth anywhere at all, let alone something that would warrant this kind of reaction where something was obviously hurting him badly. I mean, this kid can bash his head on the concrete driveway and barely cry. I didn't understand how he could have hurt himself so badly just on the carpet, but he was definitely either in pain or super scared. And then it happened.

A large single tear, welled up in the corner of his eye and rolled down his cheek. Oh, and did I mention this was no ordinary tear? It was blood. A single (huge) teardrop of blood rolling out of his eye in what seemed like slow motion. And then I watched terrified as another rolled out and then they were squeezing out of both sides of his eye. I ran him over to the kitchen sink, desperately trying to wipe out his eye and see where the blood was coming from. I couldn't see anything and he was still upset and would hardly let me touch his eye at all. Then, as quickly as the blood tears started, they were gone. It was probably a total of just four or five large drops, and then his eyes were dry. He was calming down; more just whining than crying anymore, and there was no sign of bleeding anywhere. I didn't know what to do. I took him back to the couch to snuggle and tried looking in his eye. He still would hardly let me touch it, but from what I could see, there was no injury on his eyeball. The inside of his eyelid under his eye was all red and looked to be bloodshot-ish, but like I said, I could hardly get a good look.

I called Ryan to see where he was on the way home. Then I called the pediatricians office to relay the fall and see if and where we should take him in. I mean, this was bleeding from the eye! So when Ryan arrived home about 20 minutes later, we all went over to the ER.
By that time, you could see where he must have fallen on the pacifier right across his eye... the lower right corner of his right eye was swollen and red and almost welted. And there was a slight red mark across the other side of his eye to the bridge of his nose. The pacifier must have just been laying on the floor and he just so happened to land on it right on his eye. I hope his eye was closed, but there is no mark on his top eyelid.
Anyway, we spent a good 2 hours at the emergency room. Sawyer was a picture perfect patient... when the nurses or doctors were in the room. Otherwise he was a picture perfect terror. Seriously, he would not stay put. He was all over the room, climbing and pulling and running and yelling. And then whenever anyone else came in the room, it was like a Jekyll and Hyde thing... he would sit still and quiet on the bed and let them poke and push and look and shine lights and put drops in his eye and do anything they wanted to him and not make a peep. And then they would leave and he turned into this maniac toddler.
And why oh why did we all go? Savannah was just as bad as Sawyer. I think from here on out I will forever have nightmares about the four of us being trapped in a 6x9 room with each other for 2 hours with nothing to do but drive each other crazy.

Turns out, they could see nothing wrong with his eye. They were very concerned about the bleeding as they can't really find anything but a possible tiny tear under his eye. But he was acting normally, moving his eyes normally, they couldn't find any abrasions on his eyeball, and he obviously wasn't in much pain as they poked and prodded a lot and he hardly winced. I was supposed to follow up with a call to the Children's Eye Clinic this morning as they said they would still like to see him. But I think I'm going to skip that, as he is as normal as ever this morning, and even the outer bruise has already faded this morning and I notice no swelling. I know they're just going to say to bring him in and have it checked again, but I don't want to drive 45 minutes over there and sit through another evaluation with both kids, and drive 45 minutes back just to have them tell me he's fine. I really think he's fine. Am I a horrible mom for wanting to get the stuff done around here that I need to instead of taking my son's eye injury more seriously?? Call it mother's intuition, I just don't feel an urgent need for him to be checked again.

That was enough pre-trip excitemet for us I think. We didn't get home to eat dinner until 8pm and then hurried to get the kids to bed before 9. At that point I was exhausted. I pretty much got ready for bed myself after that. And then I read!! Yay!
And when I went to sleep, I was fully expecting to have bad dreams about the bloody tears thing. Seriously, that is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. There was just something so unnaturally unreal and just wrong about seeing tears of blood rolling down your child's cheek. Never again please.