Pain!

What a painful past 3 days we've had. On Friday she fell off a swing at gym class. We were swinging and swinging and she was having such a good time and then she FLEW off the swing. Right onto a wooden dowel climbing thing. In the midst of all her screaming I noticed a red mark on her neck but couldn't tell if that was the major impact point. The next day a small bruise showed up on her neck. Poor thing.

On Saturday after lunch (and after Autumn fell over and hit her back on the wire loop on the kitchen table) we took Autumn, Luke and Phoebe out in the backyard.


We had been meaning to get rid of the prickly pear cactus for awhile now. It doesn't have big spikes, but it is ugly and damaged from falling over a bunch of times. We put the cactus family with the huge spikes up on a shelf. At one point Autumn kept walking past the prickly pear and at one point she put her hand on it. It didn't seem like she was bothered by it.

After chasing all three around the yard I started noticing that Autumn kept grabbing her hand with her other hand and pinching up her face. She also kept waving her left hand around a lot. I called her over and noticed some red dots on her palm and wrist. Here she is pinching her face and grabbing her hand.

We gathered everyone up (no easy task) and started trying to get the spines out of a very upset, snotty, wriggly. Richard was trying to hold her down while I used tweezers to try to get the one spine I could see out. I think I might have gotten that one out, but there was no way I could get the rest at. We gave her some pain reliever and then she and I took a shower in the hopes of calming everyone down and cooling us off. It was her first shower since she was a bitty baby, so I wasn't sure how she was going to handle it. But after the initial getting used to the spray she really had a lot of fun. It really went a long way in calming her down and distracting her.

On Sunday we took Autumn to see the bluebonnets. After we left Autumn really started getting upset and grabbing at her feet. I took her shoes off, but then she started grasping at her ankles. That's when I noticed the scrapes and scratches on her ankles. The grass/hay/whatever that grows in between the bluebonnets had cut her up. Poor, poor little girl.