I pride myself on being an attentive and thoughtful parent. I try and keep an eye on things and make sure the kids have everything they need. Dennis doesn’t have many words yet so we don’t talk much but I regularly check in with Moo and ask her if she’s having a good day, who she played with at kinder, is she hungry and such. Like many parents I sometimes fall into the trap of too much negotiation and too little straight out boundary setting, but not often. For the most part we’re pretty good parents.
Which is why the events of this week have shaken my confidence in my parenting skills just a little. About ten days ago we had an afternoon at the local indoor play centre. Lots of running and climbing and fun. Moo made a friend so we only saw her in flashes. We were just gearing up to head home when Moo came thundering by at warp 5 with her little friend beside her. They got into a bit of a tangle and Moo hit the deck. She got up crying and holding her right wrist.
That night it looked a little swollen but she wasn’t complaining about it and didn’t complain about it for the following week or so. We assumed that she might have a minor sprain. Anyway she and I were having a wrestle on Sunday night and I grabbed her on the wrist. From memory I was about to employ a figure four leg lock or suplex manoeuvre that I picked up from watching WWF when I was a kid, when she screamed that I was hurting her wrist. I said to Juicy Tomato that it might be time to get it checked out.
Suffice to say that an x-ray revealed that she had fractured her wrist in two spots. Juicy Tomato’s face was white when they got back from the hospital. We sat together on the couch silently as Moo and Dennis danced to the new Hi-5 DVD. ”We are terrible parents.” She whispered. ”I agree. How could we miss that?”
We sat in silence until the DVD ended when Miss Moo turned to us and said matter of factly, “My wrist hurts more with this cast on and I can’t dance properly.”
It didn’t make us feel any better though.
