Things that never occurred to me

Today my daughter was burned on her hand.

I feel awful about it.

I was making cookies and she was playing on the kitchen floor. When I turned to the sink she opened up the bottom drawer of the stove and when she pushed it back in her little precious fingers got caught between the top of the drawer and the bottom of the oven drawer. Apparently the oven vents some heat down there and it gave her little fingers first degree burns.

I just feel sick thinking about how she screamed. I didn't figure out what happened at first. Then I put my hand where hers had been and then it came to me like a flash. So I ran to the sink and forced her hands under the cold water. After another eternity (maybe 90 seconds) I could see that she only had burned her right hand as the blisters were coming up from the skin.

So I made an ice pack and called the Pediatrician. We jumped in the car and went to the office to have it looked at by the doctor. She is fine. Her hands will heal. I think I am the one who is scarred as a result. Later on that day when she came near the oven she wouldn't even crawl across the rug in front of it. She deliberately crawled around the whole thing. It never occurred to me to "babyproof" the oven when it was on...I only checked it when it was off.

Ahhh..natural consequences are an effective teacher...if not unbearably painful.