The Bloodbath of January ’06
There’s nothing like being awakened at 4 am by a crying toddler who is calling your name.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”
This was the scenario early Sunday morning. I wasn’t sleeping well, I so copped out and told the Webmaster (who can get back to sleep much more easily than I can) to please go and tell her to go back to sleep.
He sleepwalks his way to her room, and I try to settle back down and fall asleep. I then hear his voice. “Um, you’d better get in here.”
By this time, her bedroom light is on, and so are my glasses. The sight that greets me is not a pretty one. There is blood on the Munchkin’s face, in her hair, on her teddy bear (which she has become very recently attached to), all over her pillowcase, on her Hello Kitty sheets, on her comforter, on her quilt, and, of course, all over her pajamas.
And this is not dried blood. This is a free-flowing fountain from the poor kid’s nose.
With the visions of laundry that will have to be done dancing through my head, the Webmaster and I tackle problem #1 – getting the nosebleed to stop. With the help of some baby wipes, I manage to clean up her face and hair while her nose continues to drip. It runs its course as I continue to blot with tissues, and finally administer the Neosporin via Q-Tip to the nostril. Nosebleed stopped. Carnage now left behind.
Okay, I’ll admit it – I was simply too freaking tired to clean up then and there. The Webmaster got her a clean pillowcase (because that was the thing that would bother her most if left unchanged), and we tucked her back down. Since the blood was still quite fresh, I did manage to clean off the teddy bear’s fur with baby wipes and then just left him out to dry off, but the rest was left until daylight hours.
Daylight saw me stripping her bed down to the mattress pad (which was unstained, thankfully) and remaking her bed with clean sheets and a spare quilt all before church that morning. Her bed had to be ready for her to nap in after church, so this all had to get done before we left. As you can guess, this did not add to my efficiency rating in getting us out the door on time. We were much later than usual, but everything seemed to work out okay.
Once we were home, I tackled the job of getting the blood out of everything. Ammonia is my friend. So I left a huge pile of things soaking in the garage while I ran a few errands, and then came back to see how this laundry deal was going to work.
The twin comforter required its own load, and was so large and fluffy that I know for a fact that some of it didn’t even get wet in the washing machine. But all the blood came out. Two more loads later, and we are back in business. Not that anything made it back to the Munchkin’s bed last night, but I’ll be able to remake her bed properly today.
I always feel so badly for the Munchkin when this happens, because I have been subject to nosebleeds myself, especially in my childhood. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself this time, too, when I saw the mess.
So, that was the bloodbath of January 2006. Stay tuned for future installments (and pity parties), because I’m sure there will be another one before too long.
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