The Ruark Kids

Blunt Head Trauma

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I was going to write tonight about all the fun Siena had this weekend with a visit from Mo and Granddad, who helped us move furniture, paint the new office, keep Siena entertained, took away a queen-size bed we’ll no longer have room for, and brought their field and brush mower to make it easier to mow the orchard.

Well, I can’t write about that because Siena finally suffered the malady that she usually attributes to her baby doll. Blunt head trauma.

Mama made a tasty peanut, red-pepper tofu dish with rice and broccoli. Siena started enjoying it, then got upset with a piece of tofu. She was done at that point. We let her be excused from the table, and she ran into the living room to play. We decided to keep on eating. About 3 minutes later…BANG! (clearly the sound of something thumping into the marble table there). Then screaming. Looks like she hit her left ear, as there’s a big bruise on the top flap of the ear. There is also some bruising/redness on the head right behind the ear, like right where that bone that slightly pokes out is.

I of course freak out and start thinking of Natasha Richardson. Suddenly I’m noticing how many words SIena seems to be slurring, she looks a little unsteady on her feet. She seems to want to go straight to bed.

On the other hand, after a fair amount of screaming, we get her into the bath and she doesn’t even seem troubled by the hair-wash scrubbing or the toweling off. She tells mama later, “It’s all healed up.” After an hour of sleep, we forcibly wake her up, which she’s unhappy about, but at least she’s up and interacting. I’ll go in and check her in a few more minutes, and we’ll watch over her a little more closely the next few days.

Unfortunately, it kind of wrecked our evening, as this was the first injury of this type so we were generally pretty stressed all night.

Kids. You want everything to go right for them, for them to grow up healthy, smart, strong, beautiful. Something like this, even though it’s probably nothing, makes you fret for all of that. Meanwhile, she’s not troubled in the least, and (until she might read this) she might never know how concerned we get. In the meantime, keeping our fingers crossed.

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