Feel The Burn!

No, this isn't about every muscle in my body (although it could be after this last week with my successful attempts to finish a running scavenger hunt). It's about the fact that Teddy's arm has what appears to be a burn mark.

I say appears because we don't know exactly when it happened, but we have a pretty good guess. He's extremely interested in just about everything, including the grill, and is mighty fast in transitioning from happily playing somewhere to being somewhere else without warning. As we were grilling lunch, we thought he only touched the handle of the grill before we redirected him. (That's my polite way of saying that we ran toward the grill and pulled him away while shouting "No!")

Apparently his arm also touched where the grill was hot, hot enough to leave a burn mark on his arm. We didn't put cool water on it right away or burn cream because we didn't know he was hurt until several hours later. He spent the afternoon playing at the Children's Museum with his babysitter and brother, and we noticed the mark when we were doing bathes tonight.

These are the moments that I feel like a horrible parent who failed her child. It's not just because I couldn't keep him safe but because I couldn't make him feel better and fix the wound. I hate that I don't know he's hurt until after the fact.

This is one of those situations where his lack of communication skills and incredibly high pain threshold work against him. I'm not sure whether the pain registered enough, but we didn't see some form of communication from him because we were distracted by trying to ensure his safety. Or, it's possible the pain didn't register for him because of how his brain processes.

Regardless, it makes me feel like a cruddy parent and serves as a reminder that:

1. He needs even closer supervision (as in he's probably only safe if we're carrying him and then he's likely to hurt both of us).

2. We really need to get in the habit of checking his body routinely for marks, skin breakdown or other signs of injury or illness.