Today was a fantastic day. However, you wouldn't have known that by the way it started out.
While I was downstairs in the basement, busily moving a great set of pictures to the computer that I had just taken with the kids outside, my twin daughters were playing with some summer water toys that had been brought in. I was only half-listening to them and watching them out of the corner of one of my eyes, so I missed seeing that they had found the kitty litter scoop and were now working quite fast at emptying the entire contents of the litter box onto the floor. It had been a couple of days since I last scooped it out, and apparently they thought they would do me a favor by helping me clean it, so at least their hearts were in the right place.
My previous 247 warnings about the dangers of playing with kitty litter (yes, I have a special spreadsheet where I track these kinds of things) had either not been heard or understood by them. Unfortunately this time, Kendall managed to accidentally throw a clump of the nasty, gritty stuff directly into Syndey's eyes. I first became aware of the crisis when I heard Sydney's piercing scream, and saw her clutching at her eyes in agony.
Any other time, I probably would have gotten upset, since I've made it so plainly clear to them in the past that the kitty litter box is completely off-limits. Nobody with common sense wants to be anywhere near a Kitty litter box if it can be avoided. But I wasn't dealing with common sense here; I was dealing with 4 year old children who were simply playing and having a good time. So Instead of getting angry, all I could think of at this point was my little girl, and how terrified she was at the pain of having a large clump of sand scratching her eye. I quickly scooped her up, ran upstairs, and gently laid her head down on a towel on the kitchen floor. I remained calm and soothed her as much as I could because I knew that what I had to do next would hurt even more, and yet it had to be done. While my wife helped me hold her eyes open, I poured a glass of water to flush the sand out. I had to do it several times because there was a large amount of the stuff embedded deep both in the corners of her eyes and under the lids.
After it was all said and done, I continued to comfort her by rubbing her back. I knew that my precious little girl had just grown up just a little bit and would probably never play in the kitty litter again. The most important lessons we learn in life are sometimes, unfortunately, the ones that we have to learn on our own, through trial and error. But these are also the ones that stick most deeply inside us, and help us truly understand.
Hearing how happy she was now that the pain was gone, and being glad that I had chosen not to get angry with her, but to instead understand her pain and comfort her, made this a very good day.
Comments