One of the hardest parts of being a working mom is deciding when to stay home and when to go to work, meaning when to take kids to daycare. I'm not talking about every day of course, I've already told you how working makes me a better mom.
Yesterday, Zoe and her bicycle had a run in.
See, she has been dying to ride her bike on two wheels and while she can ride on two wheels wonderfully on her smaller bike, her new Christmas bike is just a tad too big for her feet to touch the ground comfortably. So to give her some stability, but still allow her to practice her two wheels daddy raised her training wheels. She was pedaling her little heart out when things went amiss. As I was watching she tumbled in the grass with the bike tumbling right with her. At first I didn't think much of it as the grass was very soft and Zoe is queen of jumping up and yelling "I'm ok." But, this time she didn't jump up, but rather was grabbing her eye. When I got to her I could see she had multiple cuts on her eye and it was already swelling. I did what any sensible mommy would do...I screamed for daddy!!
When we got her in the house, we saw the cuts weren't too deep {Thank God!}, but it was swelling quickly and soon her eye was swollen shut. After getting a couple opinions and testing her vision to make sure she could still see okay, we decided to skip an ER visit to see how it looks today.
Hence, the decision making.
Do we send her to school?
Do we wait till the morning and then make a decision?
If she stays home, who will stay with her?
I'm not going to lie. Decisions like these are tough. In a way I think being a teacher makes it even more difficult. Because on the one hand I have my little girl needing her mommy {or her daddy} while on the other hand I have 20 fifth-graders depending on me to welcome them back to school after spring break, ready to listen to all their stories.
But, for today, my daughter wins!
She needs her mommy pouring ibuprofen and tylenol down her throat, holding ice and warm cloths on her eyes, while rubbing her back. We'll spend the day snuggled together with me waiting on her hand and foot while she "winks" {she told me that she will be okay because she knows how to wink} at me. I will ease her fears of her eye being swollen shut, tell her that the kids will think her black eye is cool when she goes back to school, and help her try to forget the pain.
For today I'll relish just being mommy..
Tomorrow I'll go back to being mommy and teacher.
