Parenting Fail

J is out of town this week at a conference, so I'm flying solo with the kids. That's not exactly true, though; my parents live nearby and they help out a tremendous amount with the kiddos. In fact, my mom made dinner last night and the kiddos and I went over there to eat. After dinner, the boy stayed with my mom to do his homework reading for the night, and the girl and I made a trip to the grocery store. The weekend was so busy that I never had a chance to go, and we definitely needed some food in the house! We did the shopping thing, checked out, and I loaded the groceries into the car. My girl was in a great mood, playing around the cart, chattering, singing, when all of a sudden I hear this huge CRASH. I look down, and she's managed to pull the entire grocery cart over. On top of her. I think she was hanging on to the side of the cart that had the 12 pack of diet coke, and it made enough of an imbalance that over it went.

Of course there was the long drawn out moment of silence that happens just before the screaming. It was not a pretty sight, and I was honestly petrified at thinking how bad the damage could be. There were grocery bags and food everywhere, a screaming little girl, and an upended shopping cart. It was just not a good scene. I picked the cart up off of her, threw everything into the car (including her) and headed for my parents house where I could get her in some light, hoping she would calm down enough by then to let me figure out what hurt. She screamed the whole way there.

Once there, I was able to get her to calm down long enough to determine that the only thing in pain seemed to be her hand. More specifically, her right fingers. There was a small nick on her shin, but she didn't bump her head or hurt anything else - just her fingers. By the time I was able to look at them, one of the nails was already turning purple, but none of them appeared to be broken. WHEW. I sort of feel like I dodged a huge bullet on that one. I was most afraid that she'd knocked her head on the concrete, but that didn't happen. I guess if there was a good way to pull a shopping cart over on herself, she figured out what that was.

I'm not sure what I could have done differently. I can't watch my kiddos every single second of the day, nor would I want to. I refuse to be a helicopter (or hover) parent, but you just hate it when your kid gets hurt.  We've been really lucky in that respect so far with both kiddos, and instinctively I know they are going to get hurt as they get older, probably more seriously than they have so far. It still sucks to know that and accept that it is just going to happen. This morning when she got up, one entire fingertip was purple, and I'm debating whether to take her in for an X-ray. I'm not sure what they can do if you fracture a finger tip, maybe just pain management, but that would be enough. I guess we'll play it by ear and see how it is a little later in the day. Here's to hoping the rest of my solo week goes better than last night...