Thursday, 14 June 2012

• Falling Down on the Job

  

   

  My girl who loves to climb had a fall last week… a nasty fall, from a tree that she was trying to climb to the ‘tippy top’ of. Thankfully a basketball hoop broke her fall and she wasn’t injured as badly as may have happened, still 7 stitches on her hip and fairly impressive scratches and bruises on her lower back is scary enough for this Mummy. 

  I’ve been noticing a lot more tree climbing happening these school holidays and Annie was going higher than usual and being more adventurous than in the past. It didn’t occur to me to connect the ‘dis-inhibition‘ side effect of her anxiety medication with the increased adventurous climbing activities. Perhaps it should have. We’ve now lowered the medication dose to see if it makes a difference.

  And there are 3 firm rules about tree climbing now that Annie seems to have taken on board.

  1. No climbing a tree without Mum or Dads permission, you can not ask another adult, it has to be Mum or Dad.
  2. Only climb on branches as thick as your legs.
  3. No going over 2 meters in height … which is approximately Mums height (I’m 161cm tall but I’m trying to allow for that childhood thing of parents seeming taller than they are).

  I’m also investigating safer climbing options at the suggestion of our peadiatrician, rock climbing with all those wonderful safety harnesses might be a much better way to go.

  We had fun on the Friday night with Annie’s blood clotting disorder raising its head for the first time, previously it has only shown up as a tendency to bruise easily. Thankfully the bleeding slowed and stopped before I felt it necessary to whisk her off to hospital.

  I’ve been so frustrated by Annie just not listening to me recently, I’d warn her over and over again about not climbing trees without asking, not going too high and it felt like she just wasn’t hearing what I was saying. Then she fell and my first response was very much along the lines of ‘I told you so’….. with cuddles and first aid thrown in while I assessed how bad the damage was.

  I’m not thrilled with myself for that, I was freaking out inside about how badly she was hurt and the possibility of internal injuries, I don’t recall getting loud or anything, just telling Annie that she did not fall out of a tree because of a dream she had about falling out of a tree, and it wasn’t her friends fault for challenging her to climb to the top. That Annie was responsible for her own actions and she needed to listen when adults told her something was dangerous and not do it. All this said along with lots of cuddles and phone calls to the doctors.

  Our lovely family doctor was able to see Annie straight away and stitch her up, I’m so relieved we didn’t have to go off to the hospital. Not only would there have been a lengthy wait, but the strange environment, all the people, it would have freaked Annie out and made her more anxious. Instead we had our beloved ‘jelly bean doctor’, so called because the girls get a jelly bean each at the end of their visit, the comfort of a familiar environment and the easy banter with our friends at reception. Our doctor had recommended we visit the butterfly house at the zoo, so Annie distracted herself talking to him about the butterflies, sang Hakuna Matata from the Lion King whilst getting stitches and didn’t cry! So brave.

  So now we have to wait two weeks to get the stitches out, no climbing, no swimming and lots more being careful… and would you believe Annie is still asking if her school can get a playground like this one the Orang-utans have at Melbourne Zoo!

  

   

   

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  Tagged as: Parenting 8yo and 6yo

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