Big A rarely falls ill. This is a very good thing because, like many men, he acts like he is at death's door every time he catches the common cold. This time though, he's pretty sick.
Since Little A has moved himself back onto our bed after a few months of sleeping on his own on the floor, his preferred sleeping spot is nestled next to his father. So naturally, he is now suffering from the same cold and cough combo as his dad.
Last night I wanted to ease both of their breathing difficulties and brought out the steam vaporiser, set it up and got it going. All was well until at about 430am, when Little A woke up, got down from the bed to get a drink, and decided he wanted to touch the vent from where the steam as issuing.
Of course he burned his hand. Of course there was screaming and crying. Of course it was not yet 5 am. He even tried to get into the sleeping au pair's room to show her his injury. I knew it was bad because he actually held on to the ice pack, something he normally never allows to come into contact with any part of his body.
After an hour, he fell asleep. Later that morning he woke up and didn't seem too bothered by the red and juicy blister covering part of his little hand. I told his teachers about the burn in case he didn't feel up to holding crayons or paintbrushes or his spoon, but when I peeked into his classroom midway through the class, he was seated at the little table, colouring away with no apparent discomfort.
For the rest of the day, he used his hand as usual. I hope the burn heals without the blister opening up, so that I don't have to worry about him touching dirty things with an open would, which he enjoys doing. Fingers crossed!
2 comments:
Aw! Poor little A :( He sounds all better though...such resilience :) Hope big A is better soon too!
I bought a vaporizer after your advice and I have the exact same one now! We didn't use it much though because little C got better already. She is too little to get up by herself and touch the vaporizer but Mama apparently isn't because I was also attracted to the steam and just had to put my hand there! And I had the benefit of reading the warnings!
Jo, I'm glad Little C is better, but believe me, by the time she's three, that vaporiser will be worth every penny you paid for it - and it will help if you or Big C are congested too!
As for touching the steam, ayayay! I KNEW we'd have a problem with that as soon as he was big enough to move around because of course he loves things he can't touch (you'll go through that too with Little C and plug sockets) but luckily most of the time he is knocked out asleep when I turn it on and I unplug it before he wakes up.
This time he woke up around 4am though, crying, and then saw it in action and thought, hey, now I can touch it! So his little hand on the steam hole was quicker than mine yanking out the plug, and voila. The great news is that his hand healed marvelously well.
My consuelo is that by the time I was 3, I'd been in the ER at least once (I climbed the glass jalousies at 1.5yrs and of course came crashing down with them and got glass shards in my feet) and so had Big A - he can't even count how many times he'd had stitches as a kid. I really hope our son isn't as naughty as we were!
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