We had a first today. Laura brought her twins over for a playdate, along with McD’s breakfast and coffee. (I love any playdate who brings food and coffee!)
That wasn’t the first. Well, I mean, it was Laura’s first time over here, and hopefully after today it won’t be the last.
No, the first was this: Cordy had her first head wound as a result of a meltdown.
The morning was going really well. Cordy was running around the backyard with Grant and Stella, having a blast picking “flowers” (weeds) and playing with the sand table. But when it was time to come back inside, Cordy had a meltdown because I wouldn’t let her bring a rock inside with her.
Yes, it’s a minor thing, but I have to stand firm with her on things like that, or we’d have a house full of rocks, weeds, and cups of sand dumped on the carpet. And sand is a bitch to get out of carpet.
This meltdown started like any other: the high-pitched whining that turned into sobs, throwing herself down on the floor, screaming, etc. Then she progressed to Stage 2 – rolling around on the floor while pounding her fists into the carpet, screaming continuing.
Stage 3 was next, and this involves hitting her head into the floor or wall. This is expected, and I try to ignore her at this point, since I don’t want to encourage her in this type of behavior. It sounds awful, but she has a thick skull, and she only rarely gives herself a bruise.
So when the meltdown began, I advised Laura to bring the twins into the living room and we’d play while letting Cordy work out her frustration in the dining room by the back door. As we sat down, the first *bang* was heard, and I knew she was hitting her head into the door. I explained to Laura that she does this a lot, and we just ignore her.
The screaming continued, and the *bang*‘s continued. After one particularly loud *bang*, I turned around to check on her, and that’s when I saw it. Blood. Streaming down the right side of her face. Lots. of. blood.
I jumped up and ran over to her, wondering how in the world she managed to bloody herself. Cordy didn’t seem to notice the blood now dripping down onto her shirt as she continued her meltdown chant of “Outside! Outside!” Laura fetched wet paper towels for me, and I began wiping off her face, looking for the source of the blood. It just kept coming, and I started to follow the flow up into her hairline, now stained with a streak of red. I finally found the opening – a half-inch cut about two inches above her temple.
She’s OK – it’s a small cut and not very deep. But it did scare me, and it wasn’t a great way to end our first playdate together. It’s no wonder we don’t get many playdate offers.
I can’t believe she split her head open because I told her to leave a rock outside. Someday I will show this entry to her, like when she’s a teen and thinks she’s so much cooler than her mom. Oh yeah? At least I didn’t give myself a gaping head wound over a rock, genius.
Oh my goodness! I sure hope she’s okay and that the wound heals quickly.
Last summer was Dawson’s time for head bumps and bruises. I seriously think people thought I was beating the child.
He got hit in the cheek by a door and then he tripped outside and bumped his forehead. It was awful.
I know the fear you felt when you saw the blood. My heart always stops when I see it!
That is great love for her pet rock. Knowing how I get at the sight of a boo-boo, I hope you are both ok.
You are so funny. I didn’t think I’d finish reading this post and then laugh out loud, but I did. That last sentence is fantastic.
And obviously I also hope that Cordy’s head heals up quickly! Eep!
Laura rocks for taking you food and coffee!
I kept thinking about this post as I went to bed last night. A couple of ideas:
-Bub’s meltdowns have always been transition-related, and it sounds like Cordy’s are as well. He has particular difficulty relinquishing objects he’s attached to. Two things have helped with this:
(1) Now that he’s more verbal, I can warn him ahead of time of the rules: at the library, he can pick out a book to borrow, but at the toy store/bookstore, everything has to stay in the store. There’s no way this would have worked until very recently, though. Cordy seems to be a bit more verbal than Bub, though, so you could at least lay the groundwork. I’ve found I have to emphasize the rule BEFORE we go into the environment.
(2) Bub does very well when he has an attachment object with him that he can take into the environment, knowing that he can use it to transition back out of the environment. For him it’s books, but maybe for Cordy you could try to cultivate a special rock? One she’s allowed to have with her everywhere?
-Obviously, once the tantrum has started you can’t respond by giving her what she wants (i.e. the rock), but there might be some ways to intervene and hopefully prevent the tantrum from escalating. If she’s as much like Bub as she seems, she’s probably not doing it to get attention, so offering attention would not positively reinforce the behaviour much – and you could try to offer strategies to help her cycle back down. There are whole books on this subject, but it’s also a matter of just figuring out certain triggers. If I can get Bub to accept a kleenex, he calms right down. I usually try sympathizing verbally with his emotions, and once he seems ready I try offering a hug, and then when it seems like there’s a window, I pull out the ultimate weapon: the kleenex.
I’m so sorry, Christina. Both you and I are finding the humour in some pretty dismal situations these days.
In spite of the blood, we really had a great time!
You are one amazing mama doing the 2 kids.. 2 totally different ages thing.
Me.. I just do the same thing twice. They talked about Cordy’s barn ALL DAY long. We might have to break down and buy one.
Just to add to hashbrowns for breakfast, I stopped by my dad’s office and we went to Steak and Shake for lunch. Did I mention I used to be a health teacher?
I’m so sorry, I know I shouldn’t laugh at a story of a toddler cutting her head open, but I had to. While my soon-to-be stepdaughter doesn’t do temper tantrums to that level, there are LOADS of things that she does that I cannot WAIT to tell her when she’s a teenager and thinks she’s hot stuff!
I came via Nello 🙂
I often wonder just how much pain kids feel. Reading stories about Cordy, I nod a lot. My son is 2 and well, he throws tantrums too. We have wood floors in our whole house, and every time without fail, he’ll hurl himself at the floor and KA-thud! Sounds painful.
That had to be really scary! I always try to remind myself that head and face woulds always look worse than they are because of the great amount of small blood vessels in the face and scalp even a really small wound bleeds profusely. That’s hard to remember when said blood is dripping down your child’s face though!!
Thank God she’s OK!
Oh yikes!
Bee has added a bit of floor head-butting to her meltdown repertoire, and it scares the shnikeys out of me.
LOL – I remember my brother doing that as a child. Glad she’s ok 🙂
As Jenifer said head wounds bleed a lot, even itty bitty ones. But the sight of all the blood is scary. I’m glad it wasn’t a more serious cut and hopefully it will heal just fine.
Bubandpie had some great advice. Maybe you could allow Cordy to pick one smallish rock for her very own. Just one. Bring it inside, wash it up, maybe let her paint it? It would then be her special rock, small enough to tuck into a pocket and not big enough to be a nuisance. The only one allowed inside. Might be a small concession to make to help her transition from outside to back inside.
My granddaughter who can have meltdowns over nap time and bedtime if not properly “prepared”. I’ve developed a routine with her for both times and it works like a charm. Her parents on the other hand fight with her every day and night over naps and bedtime. For some reason they cannot/will not follow the same routine at home. It seems so simple to give her a 15 minute warning. (Sometimes I fudge the time a bit, she’ll never know)For naps I let her turn the tv off and she heads right upstairs to her bed, out like a light within a couple of minutes. For bedtime when she spends the night here we have a 15 minute warning followed by teeth brushing, drink of water, kisses, hugs and “mekamo” (eskimo) kisses, climbs in bed and asleep within minutes.
Giving a warning of the transition that is coming up, following a routine and being consistent with it have been lifesavers in avoiding transition meltdowns with the Peach.
I hope you soon find routines that work for you and Cordy 🙂
As others have said, head wounds bleed a lot! My daughter fell and cut her head on the way to the airport leaving to come home from vacation. There was blood everywhere, it was almost pouring out of her. Once we could get a closer look, it was a relatively small cut but did gush.
Good luck figuring things out and I did have a laugh by the end of your story.
Glad you found humor in the situation! The final line was genius!
Your patience is astounding. I would have had a meltdown, myself.
Keep on keepin’ on, friend.
:o) This post made me smile. Not because of the head wound (poor baby!) but because of your calm reaction to it. This definetly will be a great story to show her later. You are a brace and great mom to walk away from a tantrum like that even if she is hurting herself. I’d have you over for a play date any day!
You must like writing! At least I can tell you are good at it!
Hi
Ah growing kids. I have four myself and understand the fun you are having. 4d1wme.com
Al
Hi, Christy:
I read through your blog about Cordy’s transition problems and her recent evaluation. I have a LOT of experience with this and would like to talk with you about what I’ve learned. Please email me from the link on my blog.
~Carrie
My son has trouble with transitions too. Very often we have an object that he can carry from one stage to the next or I trade objects with him to get him to the next activity. Often, having him say “good bye” to an object or “parking it,” since it’s very often a car, helps break the spell of whatever he was doing last so he can move on.