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A 1st generation American on a path to keeping happiness through every bump in Life's road. A wife, a mother and a friend creating a blog to document her journey.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

My "Ouchie" Day

I went to Target (tar-zzshhhay) to get a storage bin for my backyard. Tried to put it in the cart but with my baby girl in there it was a no go. So I picked it up and tried to put the box, since it was flat, under the cart. Didn’t work there either. I grabbed the box to slowly pull it out from under and a metal pointy thing caught and dug into my middle finger of my left hand. I said calmly “ouchie” (as that is my new vocabulary word for F-CK!).

I looked down at my finger and blood was all over the floor. I guess I really cut my finger. Instantly I put pressure on my cut and took a deep breath. Then I heard my daughter take a deep breath (those of you that joined me at India House have witnessed my daughter’s Deep Breath). I turned to my girl and there she was reaching her hands out to me and saying “Mama! Okay?? Mama?? Okay??” I took the pressure off my finger to look at what the living hell I did, but when I let go, blood just flowed out of my finger like water out of a faucet…so I clamped my finger back into pressure mode. Took another sigh and said calmly to my daughter “well, babe…I guess mommy has an ouchie…” and then looked down again…blood, drops of blood all over the Target floor, blood smeared all over my hands…it was a fricken crime scene.

I saw an employee and called her over to me as I’m held my finger and heard my daughter get louder asking if I’m okay since I hadn’t answered her yet. I told the employee that I needed help and that the cart somehow cut me. She responded “you need a cart?” Needless to say English was her second language. “No…I don’t need a cart, I need h-e-l-p help…” and proceeded to show her my blood-flowing cut. She uttered a gasp and then started saying something in Spanish (which I think sounded like Madre de Dios!) and “un momento”-ed me. She flew down the aisle. In the meantime I couldn’t hear myself think because part of me wanted to faint so I grabbed the cart, and the other part of me couldn’t take the decibel level that my daughter was now yelling “MAMAAAAAA! YOU OKAY!!!?” in.

I grabbed a wipe (thank G-d for baby wipes I am never letting go of those things) and wrapped it around my finger and ran around the cart to my baby. “Baby Girl! I’m okay…I’m okay.” She maternally stroked my arm that was holding my finger steady. “Boo-boo?” She asked me. “yes, baby…mama has a boo-boo”. She looked at me with a concerned look and said “Ouchie?” as she continued to lovingly caress my arm. “Yes, love. Mama has an ouchie” She put her hands out and yelled as loud as she could “AWWWWWWWW!!!” and hugged me. And so that opened up the gates to misty-eye land. The Spanish speaking lady came running back with gauze and tape. I turned my back to my girl and told her to hang on just a second, that the nice lady was going to help my finger get better. “No! Mama! Noooooo!” she whined, and then began to cry. She just didn’t want anyone to help me…I think she felt that her rubbing my arm was suffice to take the pain away (it was). The nice lady understood and after hermetically sealing my middle finger she let me get back to my daughter who was ohhh so mad. “Babygirl” I said “she had to help mama. Mama is all better now see?” and I showed her my ouchie all wrapped up to be magically cured. When she saw the white gauze and tape around my finger she put her hands on her cheeks Home Alone style and gasped an “oh no!” and then folloed through with a loving ‘awww’ and hugged me once again. “No scared mama…no scared”. What a dear. “Thanks honey…mama no scared anymore.”

I walked back to the car with her thinking how well I handled what would have normally been a yell-out-loud painful and stressful experience full of truck driver style vocabulary, and yet I had more control of my surroundings than a Tibetan monk. Don’t know where that came from so it must have come along with the you-are-a-mommy-now package delivered from the Man upstairs. What’s more, to see the level of compassion and love that my less than 2-year-fresh-into-the-world daughter has for me, I simply choke up. As we got closer to my car, she said “Mama?” and I lovingly looked at her. “Yes, baby?” and with all her might she said “MAMA…” and she took a deep breath in…then let it out yoga style…and pointed to me to do it. I finished my deep breath on command. She gave me a hug and said “goo(d) girl, mama” and patted me on my back.

My girl is 22 months old. Going on 40. I’m almost looking forward to my next “ouchie”. Let’s hope the next one is just a small bump on my arm or something….