Playful Rooted

Well, friends.

Something I never saw coming:

(This post might be filled with puns. I’m still a little loopy from all the adrenaline. Apologies in advance.)

After a good four years of saying that we would never, ever, ever have toy guns in our house, I caved when Luca got a Nerf gun from his older cousins for Christmas. He had played with Nerf guns at their house and at other kids’ houses, and I knew how much fun he had with them. And, as a friend recently mentioned, even if you don’t allow toy guns in the house, little boys still make guns out of anything (which is true! Luca has been making guns out of Duplos, sticks, play-dough, etc. since he was probably three). Anyway, I caved. I allowed the thing I said I would never allow.

Six weeks later….I’m the one who ends up in the emergency room. A Nerf dart right to the eye. Unbelievable.

I have a scratched cornea (painful, but not a huge deal) and a traumatic hyphema (painful, and a pretty big deal). A hyphema means that there’s blood pooling in the anterior chamber of my eye, between the cornea and iris. (Go ahead and Google “hyphema images” if you feel like vomiting today.) This makes it impossible to see clearly; as the ER doctor explained it, everything looks blurry because I’m literally looking through a pool of blood. Cute, huh?

The wonderful, praise God news is that my injury is minor. In most minor cases, the body reabsorbs the pooled blood, the pressure in the eye relaxes, and vision is restored back to normal. It still hurts like crazy, and not being able to see out of my left eye is shockingly stressful and annoying. But I’m unbelievably grateful that it wasn’t worse, and I’m optimistic that my vision will return to normal in time. More severe cases of hyphema can cause permanent vision loss. Permanent. That’s the thing that has me the most shaken up about all of this: your life can change in the blink of …. well, you know. One second, I was just standing there, looking at something on the stairs, and a fraction of a second later, I was on my knees, holding my eye and crying, “oh no, oh no, oh no” because I knew this was bad. And if it had been really bad? It’s just so sobering to realize that a split second is all it takes.

I honestly hesitated to post this because, frankly, I’m really embarrassed and angry with myself for ever allowing the Nerf gun in the house. Clearly, I should have…..are you ready?…..stuck to my guns. Toy guns go against all my parenting goals. I’m truly ashamed. But I’m sharing anyway because I want everyone reading this to be aware of what can happen. My friends and my sister made Nerf guns seem so innocuous. But the ophthalmologist I saw for my follow-up appointment told me he’s seen little kids with corneal damage, traumatic hyphemas much worse than mine, and even detached retinas from Nerf gun accidents. These things are not harmless! We’re obviously getting rid of ours, but if you choose to let your kids play with Nerf guns, slingshots, or anything similar, please please please make sure everyone (not just the kids, but everyone in the vicinity!) is wearing safety glasses.

And for that matter, safety glasses should be a must in any situation where something could happen to your eyes. Hammering up some drywall? Safety glasses. Playing racquetball? Safety glasses. Doing a chemistry experiment? SAFETY. GLASSES. Just do it, promise?

The other part of this whole scene is that it’s been an interesting parenting challenge. Here’s the thing: Luca was aiming at me. He was NOT aiming at my eye; he did NOT intend to hurt me, let alone cause all this ocular drama. But he was aiming at my body. And he KNOWS BETTER THAN THIS. Since day one, we’ve drilled it into his head: you never, ever, ever shoot at another person or an animal. And he did it. He shot a dart at me, even though we’ve explained it to him over and over and over. My sweet, kind, sensitive, loving little boy. Unreal.

But you know what four-year-olds are? Even the sweet, kind, sensitive, loving ones? They’re big, fat, tiny little dummies. They’re basically little lizard people. I’ve studied enough developmental psychology and read enough parenting books (this is one of my faves) to know that a four-year-old’s prefrontal cortex–the part of the brain that makes logical decisions and considers how his actions affect others–is VERY far away from being developed. Like, years and years away. That’s not even to mention impulse control, which doesn’t fully develop until age 25. !!!! (Explains some of the choices we all made as teenagers, right?) So I’m trying to balance my disappointment in him with the understanding of where he is developmentally.

What he knows is that he shot me with a dart gun, and that that’s not okay. He knows he made a very bad choice. He knows he hurt me. He knows we had to go to the “hostipul.” He feels terrible about it; he cried for hours and said, “Mommy, I’m weally, weally sowwy,” about 600 times. And he will have consequences for this for a long, long time.

But what his brain can’t comprehend is the possible long-term effect of his actions. He doesn’t understand the concept of permanence. He doesn’t even fully understand what blindness is. He knows he did something very wrong, and he has to deal with that (with support from mom and dad). But he doesn’t understand the full gravity of the situation because he simply can’t. His brain can’t do it. And trust me, I want to be angrier at him! I do. I mean, hello! He shot a dart at my eye, and I could have gone blind!! But logically, I realize that to be angry with him for something he can’t understand right now is like someone being mad at me for not speaking fluent Portuguese when I’ve never studied it. It’s unreasonable and unfair. I don’t have the skillset or the experience. I simply can’t do it.

Man, it’s hard to be the grown-up sometimes.

Well, this post took an interesting turn, didn’t it? Again, I blame the adrenaline and shock, and also maybe there’s something sketchy in these FOUR different types of eye drops I have to use every day. But no painkillers of course, because I also happen to be almost four months pregnant! Guh. Life.

Thanks for reading, gang. Stay well out there. And always, always wear your safety glasses!

xo!