anger management

How many times have I heard myself say "don't play with the doors! Leave the doors alone! Don't slam doors! Someone's going to lose a finger!!!!" ???

Well, it's finally happened. In a classic moody girl fashion, the twins were having an argument over who got to use the bathroom first before we all headed to the neighborhood pool. It was the first day of a two week long spring break, and I had a house full of girls aged 7 - 10, restless and in need of entertainment. I had announced we were going swimming, and went upstairs to put on my bathing suit, thinking I would get a little swim workout in myself whilst the kids goofed off in the "fun" pool. I could hear the voices from the bathroom below, gradually raising in volume as a typical scenario played out - as in I'M going to the bathroom! Well, I NEED TO GO FIRST! NO YOU DON'T, I NEED TO GO FIRST!! and so on. The fact that we have two other bathrooms in the house is apparently completely irrelevant. I sighed, adjusted the straps on my suit and was about to open my mouth and call out to the girls to please stop the fighting when the screams started.

Now as a parent you just get to know the difference between screams and SCREAMS. Hopefully you rarely get to hear the latter, but when you do you know it right away. Anyway, 6 little girls can make a lot of noise. My eldest came running (and screaming) up the stairs, followed closely by Kate, who was screaming even louder and crying. More screams rang out from the main floor. I raced downstairs and rounded the corner to the bathroom, where two more girls and Emily stood screaming. Emily was also holding her right hand with her left, and there was way too much blood everywhere.

After scooping Emily up and plopping her on the floor in the kitchen where my freaking out brain could only assume I would be closest to any medical type supplies I might need, I managed to get Elizabeth to tell me what had happened. The battle for the bathroom had escalated and Kate managed to push past Emily into the bathroom, where she turned and slammed the door. Shut. On Emily's finger. Elizabeth fortunately was nearby and raced to open the door again, and the drama commenced. Now, I suppose that perhaps your finger or mine (an adult finger in other words) might have not suffered quite so badly in this particular situation. I don't know. What I do know is that Emily is not an adult, she is a very slight 8 year old girl with fragile, slim, dainty fingers. Without going into terrible gory detail, the door inflicted pretty horrific damage to her poor finger, from the top knuckle up. Horrific enough to exceed my expectations when I attempted to assess the damage, horrific enough for my stomach to do one of those slow flip flops and cause my heart to race even faster than it already was. All I could think to say at that moment was "Em, look away." And she calmly replied as she turned her head, "Okay Mom..."

Anyway, long story that I don't particularly want to relive again short, an ambulance ride to the hospital, xrays, stitches and consults with a plastic surgeon later we are awaiting the unveiling of the finger at the doctor's office later today. It has been a very long week. Not just for me, the worried mom, or for Em, the injured party who has been amazingly brave and calm through all of it, but is terrified of having to endure yet more probing and pain at the hands of the doctor, and for Kate, the guilty party. Kate, who has been displaced from her bed since the accident, as we couldn't have Em attempting to climb up and down to the top bunk, and so therefore we put her in the bottom bunk, which is Kate's. I could have possibly put Em in Elizabeth's bed, except that by Tuesday she had come down with an acute case of tonsillitis and a sinus infection and ended up sleeping with me in my bed for the rest of the week, which meant that hubby had to sleep in her bed. Kate has spent the week alternating between nightly temper tantrums over the loss of her bed, to crying herself to sleep once she is ultimately reminded of why she has lost her bed. Almost like she is flogging herself daily as a form of repentance/guilt over her part in the situation.

Interestingly, Emily is the one who continues to insist to everyone that the whole thing was an accident. Every time she says this, I can hear Kate quietly add, "no it wasn't." And when she weeps at night, she says "I didn't know, I didn't know" over and over again. What a terrible way to learn a lesson. We have warned her so many times that her anger could cause her to really hurt someone, whether she intended to or not.

What I hope for is this. Number one, that Emily's finger will be alright. That she won't have to have part of it amputated, or go through a long, painful healing process. That when they take the bandages off today, it will be on it's way to recovery, without the need for medical interventions. That it won't hurt too much.

Number two, that this will not cause permanent damage to my daughter's relationship with each other. That Em will forgive, and that Kate will feel real remorse.

And three, that in addition to remorse, Kate will ultimately benefit in some way from this. That this will help her in her battle to control her emotions and her actions. I don't want it to haunt her or anything as traumatic as that for the rest of her life, but I don't want her to forget it either. I want her to learn from this and hopefully never ever lash out in anger like that again.

I always joke that drama stalks me at every turn, but this is just a bit too much.