Blisters & Band-Aids

Over the weekend, we went to our family’s mountain cabin. While there, the children’s Advil bottle was left on the nightstand in William’s room. When William grabbed it, I asked him for it and he handed it to me, so I took two steps and put it up on top of the dresser. William started whimpering, but I thought it was because he wanted his medicine. When I turned back around he had the sticky lid in his fingers, and when he handed the lid to me, he started screaming.

Everyone who has had a toddler knows they can be quirky creatures, and I thought he had suddenly developed an aversion to stickiness. So, I picked him up and he kept rubbing his sticky fingers and crying. I took him out to wash his hands in cold water to get the sticky off, the obvious solution to his problem. He calmed down while the cool water was on his hands, I congratulated myself in my head for solving this problem so astutely. But when I turned the water off, he started screaming again. I tried nursing, he wanted to, but would touch his fingers together and would start sobbing again and he couldn’t latch. He kept touching his fingers with his other hand and crying. So I thought maybe I had missed some of the sticky. Off we went to wash his hands again. Tried nursing again, and same thing, so we rinsed his hands a third time. And then Tony tried to wash his hands with a wet wipe. That didn’t work either. At that point, I thought maybe since all the natural oils had been washed off his hands, his skin must have still felt sticky to him, even though it technically wasn’t. The only thing that ultimately was able to calm him down was Baby Signing Time DVDs. He loves watching them and learning from them.

On Monday night I got home and I was horrified and somewhat sickened in my heart when I saw that he had blisters on his index and middle fingers. The blister on his index finger had popped (or he had pulled the skin off) and the middle finger has several unpopped blisters all down it. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense. Of course, a burn would stop hurting while under cool water. Of course, a burn would start hurting again if touched. Of course, of course, of course.

I stared at those blisters a good long time, trying to figure out what happened in the time span of just a couple seconds. The only thing I can figure out is that he must have touched the light bulb of the lamp that is on the nightstand in the cabin in the two seconds I had my back turned to put the medicine up… and then he grabbed the sticky lid of the baby Advil that had been left on the nightstand.

William attends gymnastic classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so yesterday to protect his injury from the germs that are surely on the equipment we tried covering it with a regular old plain beige band-aid. It lasted all of 20 minutes before William pulled it off. Didn’t even make it to the start of gymnastics class. So, I asked Tony to pick up some Cars band-aids at Walmart. When he got home, he showed his purchases. He had, indeed, picked up Cars band-aids, as well as Angry Birds Star Wars band-aids, and for good measure, Mickey Mouse band-aids. (I don’t even know which words to italicize there.) My mom was astonished to learn that companies make fancy band-aids now… everything is all about marketing. But, you know what? It works.

Apparently putting a band-aid with a picture of Cars on your toddler’s finger and other random spots of your toddler’s body is the key to him keeping it on.

And somehow I have a feeling that Tony plans to use the Star Wars band-aids on any injury he gets. Just a suspicion.