storbarnsförälder

I laid Emer on a blankie on the floor and calle dLinnea in to do painting. Linnea hauled on the blankie and tipped Emer off. Painting cancelled, Linnea in isolation for a few minutes. then I called her outside to play there. I gave her a stick of pavement chalk to draw on the patio. She screamed for the whole basket of them - 20 huge chalks. Nope. I walked outwith Emer and a stick of purple chalk myself, talking loudly about starting to draw. She followed and started to draw too.

Then she started to whinge because the patio was sandy. It's sandy because she and her little toddler friends empty the sand out of the sandpit, but no matter. I started to sweep the sand up - I do this periodically, sieve it clean andreturn it to the sandpit. She took the brush and started to sweep the paid-for sand into the flowerbeds, never to be retrieved. I confiscated the brush. She snuck it back. I pulled it out of her hands and put it away inside the house. She snuck it back. I hauled it from her grip and put it in the house and went inside myself. She followed, screaming "NO my CAN'T go inside! My CAN'T!" and grabbed the brush again. I wrested it from her grasp with gritted teeth, and as I hauled it away in grim victory, I bashed Emer's head against the doorframe.

I didn't hit Linnea.

I got Linnea out of the rear hall and kitchen area somehow. I looked at Emer's head to see how much damage I'd done; a large reddening patch and a bit of scraped-back skin on the top of the back of her head. I got Linnea into the front room and turned on the telly, and then I went into the dining room and called NHS Direct.

Careful questioning showed that she wasn't obviously concussed. No blood out her ears, no clear fluid from her nose, no bruising behind her ears, not passed out, not floppy, etc. But four weeks old, so almost impossible to diagnose mild concussion. The NHS Direct woman told me to keep a very close eye on her for 24 hours but other than that, not to do anything.

I went in to Linnea to give both girls some milk, to reunite us in a loving hippie harmony and calm us all down and make us all friends again. The phone rang out whie I did that, which was fine, but then it rang again. So I went and answered it. It was the woman from NHS Direct again, saying that she'd thought about it and thought I should go to A&E, just because the baby was so young. I checked that it wasn't 999 material and called Rob.

He didn't answer his mobile.

He didn't answer his work direct line. I called the main office number and asked to leave a message for him. Urgent but not life or death urgent, I said - I have to take the four-week-old to A&E, please get him to call me as soon as he can. Apparently the woman who answered the phone went and stood by his desk and interrupted his phonecall so he called me back very quickly.

Then I called Nicki to see if she could watch Linnea while we took Emer to A&E. She suggested calling the duty doctor at the local surgery, because it's not far away at all. I did, and she called me back. She understood that SPD + recent c-section + toddler + baby meant I couldn't walk to the surgery, and said that she could come within an hour but if I could get to A&E any faster that was the better thing to do. I agreed to call her if we went to A&E and she said she'd call me to make sure I was in before leaving for the house.

I gathered a nappy bag for Linnea and one for Emer and found my coat and handbag and wallet and the carseat and then Rob came home; I handed him Linnea and he took her to Nicki, and I called a taxi whiel he was out. It arrived back when he did; he put Emer in the carseat (I can't adjust the straps because of the RSI some of you may remember from about the year 2000) and lifted her out to the car (which I also can't do because of the much more recent c-section) and we went to A&E.

It wasn't very busy. Rob got me a cup of machine-made sweet black teaswill, and that steadied me a bit. Although I knew Emer was fine, the second call from NHS Direct rattled me. Anyway, we saw a nurse and a doctor and were assured she was fine. They shone lights in her eyes and asked me a lot of questions about her responses and so on. She's fine. We have a little standard card for care after a child's head injury; I read it quickly and assured the doctor that we'd keep her out of school.

Then we came home. We were gone less than 90 minutes in total, so it was faster than getting a housecall from the doctor 200 yards away as the crow flies. Hm.

I am knackered. But the bump on her head is fine and the graze didn't even bleed. And it missed both fontanelles.

Pls snd chclt.