On the Importance of Bleach

 At the beginning of 1996, I was married with a baby and a new house. It was early spring and the weather was near freezing. We bundled up the baby and went out to the new house to take measurements and decided to order a pizza and just eat on the floor of the dining room. We had no refrigerator, an ancient stove that came with the house and questionable plumbing. But it was ours. My husband, we'll call him M, had arranged earlier in the week for his mother to meet us at the house to bring a housewarming gift, which turned out to be an antique steamer trunk I'd had my eye on. I loved it. When my husband carried it inside, it was our only furniture. 

 While M goes to get the pizza, I stay behind with dear daughter(DD), who was perfectly safe crawling around on the carpet. My biggest fear is that she'll chew on the window sills and get lead poisoning from eating paint chips (She did none of those things, btw). Meanwhile, I'm measuring windows for curtains and getting room dimensions to plan furniture placement while the baby explores at my feet or in view if not in reach. Some time after M leaves, DD loses interest in whatever I was doing and she makes a beeline for the trunk. What happened next I re-live in slow motion. 

 At first I think I'm just going to intervene and prevent her from chewing on it, so I start walking towards the trunk. I swoop in a moment too late to rescue her. Her legs collapse from under her as she's pulling herself up, faceplanting directly onto the closing latch of this ancient trunk. The shrieks that followed would rival a banshee and I'm hoping this is not the way I meet the neighbors. It's not just the indignity of the injury. There's blood. A *LOT* of blood. Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood. 

 I clasp her to my chest and rush her to the bathroom, where we had set up the diaper changing station. She's barely 10 months but she has the strength of legions, fighting my every attempt to staunch the blood so I can see if this is a serious injury. Did I mention there was a lot of blood? I read that scalp injuries bleed a lot, but this seemed like too much. All I have at my disposal is baby wipes and toilet paper. I'm having zero luck with either of them, so I sit down on the floor and decide to nurse the baby to calm both of us down. This works like a charm, and while she's nursing I wipe the blood from her face and realize it's just a scratch. She won't need stitches. 

 M returns to find me and the baby covered in blood. She's quiet now but I'm at the edge of hysteria, trying to calmly explain what happened and feeling very guilty for letting her get injured on my watch. M remarks jokingly that my shirt used to be white and I'm still worried that he will think I'm a terrible mother. I say out loud that I'll never get that stain out and he says, "That's what bleach is for" and that was the end of it.