A bad accident

On Wednesday night after dinner, I was in the process of making pie. I put milk on the stove to scald for pumpkin pie, but I turned on the wrong burner. The burner I did turn on had a glass pan containing a few rolls on it. A few minutes later, I noticed the burner under the rolls was red, and I smelled the rolls burning. I quickly turned off the burner. I got out hot pads and picked up the pan to move it somewhere else. Now I know that this is not a good idea, but I didn’t know at the time. The pan exploded in my hands and then fell to our tile floor, where it shattered again.Lego was watching me cook from the dining room, about five feet away. One pea-sized piece of hot glass hit him in the cheek. He and I were so stunned by the explosion that it took him a minute to cry, but once he did, he immediately wanted mommy. He started to crawl to me across the hot, broken glass. I was so stunned I couldn’t think. With everything in me, I willed him to stop, but I didn’t go to him.

Luckily, Jonathon ran in when he heard the noise and caught Lego before he got more than a pace or two. He was bleeding from a few tiny cuts, and he had several second-degree burns on his forearms and knee, along with the one on his cheek. Jonathon kept his cool the whole time, which was good because I was useless. He told me to get ice, and I did. He told me to get Tylenol, and I did that too. Lego wouldn’t let us get the ice near him, though. We left for the pediatrician less than five minutes later.

At the pediatrician, they did manage to put cold, wet gauze across his legs and arms, but the cheek was kind of impossible. They gave him Motrin there, which seemed to work because he stopped crying and even smiled at one of the nurses once. After about an hour, they dressed the wounds and gave us prescriptions for Tylenol with Codeine (I haven’t used it yet because he hasn’t seemed in much pain at all, surprisingly) and an antibiotic ointment to put on the burns when I change the dressings, just in case.

They also told us to call the burn center at the University of Utah on Friday because everything would be closed for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, we came home and cleaned up the glass, which had gotten everywhere, including our couch. Pieces of glass that landed on the carpet in our dining room melted the carpet all the way down in dime-to-quarter-sized chunks. We’d taken such good care of that carpet, since it was new. We didn’t even wear shoes in the house. It seems silly to feel bad about the carpet when Lego got hurt and he’s obviously much more important, but I do. And we don’t really have a lot of money to spend on new carpet, considering Jonathon’s unemployment.

At least the kitchen floor was tile and not linoleum, so it’s fine.

And Lego was more or less himself on Thanksgiving Day, thanks to regular doses of Tylenol and a very doting grandpa.