Yesterday E went to visit a prospective daycare, which happens to be located 2 blocks away, is run by a nice Chinese lady, and they have an opening in September.  To be honest, our chances of getting e into a daycare is pretty slim due to the high demand, but then this one came out of nowhere, and seems to fit our criteria almost perfectly… Hmmm, strange forces are at work here…

As the meeting was 6, it threw off our schedule a bit.  e’s solid feeding was pretty tough, and we needed multiple wet paper towels to clean her, and the feeding area up.  In between, we had to finish making our dinner and wolf it down quickly as we wanted to get a Superstore run in.

I think our minds were preoccupied with a lot of things- looking for a house, leaving e at a daycare, E returning to work, calling daycare references, etc. 

 As we drove into the parking lot, we automatically went through our routine- I put on the ergo carrier without the shoulder straps, E gets baby and transfers her over… very similar to the Emporer Penguins and their egg transfer.  E puts baby into the carrier facing me, and as I lean back to slide the shoulder straps on, the waist belt pops open and e drops to the pavement…

It was one of those moments where things happen so fast you’re in disbelief.  E wheels around and yells something, and all I notice after the pop is that I can’t feel e’s weight against me.  E is the first to get to e, and by this time baby is screaming.  Her nose is scraped up pretty good, and there’s a welt on her forehead.  This is the worst feeling in the world…

We quickly assess what’s happening.  It’s a good thing she’s crying loudly…. as it means she didn’t lose consciousness and likely no concussion.  Limbs are ok, no blood coming from inside nose and a tiny bit from her lip.  Nothing to indicate we need to call 911 or turn myself into the bad parent police.

We rush her home and ran a warm bath.  She calmed down in the car, so that’s another good sign.  As I was taking her diaper shirt off, the poor thing was sniffling… and I remember it’s that stuffy feeling when you get bonked on the nose by a football.  If her nose was broken, there would be a lot more swelling, blood, and tears… so I was pretty sure it wasn’t broken.  In her bath, she was acting normally, splashing around playing with her ducks, and we didn’t see any more bruises or scrapes.  I held her for awhile until she was ready for sleep, then stayed in her room until she fell asleep. 

The ergo carrier has a plastic common buckle, like you see on most backpacks, that closes at your waist at your back.  When I closed it, I must not have pushed fully… so that the carrier stayed on my waist, but would not hold any weight.  Furthermore, the ergo has an extra safety feature- a piece of fabric that you slide the male end of the buckle through, so if it accidently disengages, the fabric would catch it.

The problem is that when I wear it, i have to pull the strap through the piece of fabric, and you can bypass the safety feature when buckling up again.  Plus the fact that the buckle is behind you, and you can’t visually see it close.  So big safety lesson learned- slide the buckle through the safety catch, and listen/feel the snap.   I shudder to think what might have happened if she landed differently.

We both had a sleepness night thinking of what happened, and the other lesson I’ve learned is to put all distractions aside when handling baby.  All that other stuff can be discussed after baby goes to sleep. 

The good news is that e is back to her normal self today.  She won’t get any dates this weekend, but I’m fine with that.  🙂    I don’t think E and I have been this scared before, and so when I gave her a hug today, it had extra meaning…