And the winner is ...

I've nominated myself for the Mother of the Year Award. Last week I let Kate toddle over to the lawn mower and grab a metal part on the top right after I had finished mowing the yard. I didn't realize how hot it was and she burned her hand pretty badly. She screamed (top of her lungs, writhing on the floor and shaking her hand in pain) for two hours. She now has large purplish blisters that are just starting to peel off on the end of her index finger, on part of her palm, and all the way up the inside of her middle finger. Then, Tuesday afternoon I was cooking and puttering around in the kitchen when I heard her fall down the stairs. She has only done that once before. Cletus and I have never been super cautious with our children when it comes to letting them do things on their own. We want them to be independent and confident in themselves, so we let them learn their limitations on their own (instead of what I commonly hear at the playground, "get down, you're going to fall!"). So, after we taught Kate how to go up and down our stairs, we felt okay about letting her do that on her own without having one of us holding her hand every time. Back to the story! I heard Kate fall down the stairs. I rushed over to her, picked her up, and almost immediately got a call from Cletus that his car had broken down in Rocky Mount and he needed us to come and get him. I noticed that Kate's right arm was hanging funny, but she wasn't screaming all that much (compared to the burning experience the previous week). So I popped her in the car and off we went. On the way, I called my sister-in-law Celeste who is a nurse (and who has 6 children, who makes her even more qualified) and asked about bad falls. For anyone who needs to know, when your child has a bad fall and may have hit their head, you should shine a light in their eyes and make sure that their pupils are dialating. If they are not dialating or if they are vomiting, then it could be a sign of a concussion. Well, Kate cleared both of those without a problem. She still wasn't using her arm and she seemed a little bit out of it, but she had been sick over the weekend and like I said, she wasn't screaming. So, we put her to bed early. The next morning, her arm was really swollen and really sore. So, off the the pediatrician I go. I found out that Kate had roseola (that was why she had had a fever on Sunday and wasn't feeling so hot) and the doctor gave us a referral to Raleigh Orthopeodics in (suprise) Raleigh for an x-ray. Once there, they found that she had a fracture in the growth plate in her elbow. Translation: we let Kate go to bed with a broken arm! What a tough little pooper! She isn't crazy about the cast at all and is having trouble using her left arm for everything. But, the pediatric orthopoedist assured me that it will heal quickly and completely in about 3 weeks (his actual words were, "kids at this age are so resilient and she's going to heal like a gangbuster". Interesting. I wonder if he learned that in medical school). So I nominate myself for the award. Are there any other nominees?
And to help my nomination: Kate was bringing me a book to read to her when she fell down the stairs.