A parenting Milestone

Yesterday we hit a parenting milestone I could have lived without!  But like a right of passage, we now have a good story and possible a scar to share with friends and family for a few months to come.  Thursdays are choir days.  We travel into town, attend a lovely little church basement, Sid sings we do errands and go home.  Choir was cancelled.  So instead we jumped on the opportunity to enjoy the warmer spring day and headed to the woods with our good friends.  We found a cozy spot in the woods right along a high traffic deer area and sat in the sun while the kids played in a makeshift fort.

 Sid loves whittling.  She has been carving and shaving sticks for several months and is very respectful of her pocket knife.  When she was learning I sat right beside her and watched and guided to make sure she handled the instrument with care.  With experience I was able to be close by but trust her to use the knife safely.  Yesterday she was whittling a knot in a stick with her hands away from the knife and the knife was being used away from her body but the blade caught the knot, kicked back and the point punctured the fleshy part of her left thumb.  Her best friend yelled "Sid cut herself!"  I jumped up, ran to her expecting a slice and found poor Sid holding her hand in the air and blood pouring down her arm and onto the ground.  A puncture is rather spectacular.  She was more upset at the thought than the pain at that point.  "Mom, it's deep, really deep."  I took a look and my friend and I looked at each other and I knew this needed more than reassurance and pressure.  We wrapped it, held it up and put pressure on it and hiked out of the woods and drove to a hospital which was luckily very close.  We were in and out of the ER in about an hour and a half and they were able to seal the cut using steri-strips so no stitches were required.  The nurses and doctors were really great with Sid and she was stoic and brave.  The knife was sharp so it didn't hurt very much but the event was traumatic for her, she is such a tough kid.  I was fine with the sight of blood and took it all in stride.  The only time I got upset was when they openly and clearly judged me for homeschooling and for making the "wrong" immunization choices.  Oh and our doctor recently passed away from leukemia so we are currently without a doctor.  So the 7 yr old unvaccinated homeschooler playing with a knife in the woods who doesn't have a family physician was treated well but Mom was treated as a second class citizen for making choices that I have a right to make.  Honestly it was a sickening feeling being on the receiving end of close minded thinking and judgements.  I looked them in the eye and answered all their questions with confidence and a smile but knew they had pegged me as a bad parent and were wondering if Sid was well cared for.  What a horrible feeling.  But it is over now.  Sid is fine, I am fine and we both learned from the experience.  On the drive home I asked Sid "So do you think you will ever whittle again?" and she answered with a "Well of course Mom, every whittler has to go through this at least once!"  I chuckled and said "How about only once ok?"  She smiled and proudly held up her hand and said "I hope I have a scar!!!!"  UGH!