YIKES!

The three of us are calmly sitting on the couch watching what appears to be the Iranian version of The Sound of Music. Okay, so the plot is not at all similar and there is no music but if you look at the case, it looks like it could be from the Sound of Music. It's called The Color of Paradise and it is about a little boy who is blind.

I don't know how the movie ends. We haven't finished it yet. And I actually was only partially paying attention to the movie so I'm not really positive what's going on. I'm trying to finish Rachel's stocking so I was doing needlework while watching the movie, which is tricky business because I don't understand a lick of Farsi (except for the words that sound like French). It's just lucky that there isn't a whole lot of dialogue so I can look up in time to read the subtitles whenever anyone delivers a line.


Rachel has gotten very interested in everything that anyone does and often makes herself a bother. When I'm doing needlework I usually keep her on my lap just to make sure she stays put. She can't wind herself in the yarn if she's on my lap. If she's on the floor she'll either tangle herself in the yarn or grab my foot, tickle it, and try to eat it. So, she was on my lap but she kept grabbing the yarn I was working with instead of playing with the yarn that I gave her to play with.


Soon she was transferred to Andrew's lap where she was perfectly transfixed by the TV screen...for about 5 minutes. She had a short little nap and then woke up as squirmy as ever. It was getting near bedtime so we put her jammies on and I fed her and tried to calm her down but she was doing this ridiculous thing she does when she's really tired but doesn't want to go to sleep.

Suck, suck.
Delatch by ripping her mouth off.
Look around.
Smile at mom or dad.
Suck, suck.
Rip off.
Look around.
Smile at mom or dad.
Suck, suck.

I hate it. I told her that she could eat when she was really ready to appreciate it. I then handed her back off to Andrew and we resumed the movie and I started up my needlework again. This is as far as I got:


Rachel was watching my every move, but I wasn't watching hers because I was busy sewing; Andrew was trying to pay attention to the movie. We both were periodically looking at her, but she seemed safe so in time we started to ignore her and her constant chatter. After all, she was snug on daddy's lap.

Then, just as I was tightening the last stitch I took for the night, Rachel lunged out of Andrew's lap. I poked her in the eye with my needle!

She started screaming and I started screaming and Andrew started screaming over both of us, "What happened? What happened?"

"I poked her in the eye!" I wailed.

"With what?" he asked.

"My needle!" by this point I was totally sobbing.

An interesting fact about Rachel is that she kind of likes other people crying. She laughs at other babies in church when they start crying. She laughs when I put on a "grumpy voice" for her. So, while I'm sitting there sobbing and waving my hands in front of my face, Rachel started laughing.

Not a little giggle, either, but great, big guffaws. She thought I was being hilarious.

"See, she's fine," Andrew tried to soothe me.

"Give her to me!" I demanded, "I want to look at her."

I put her on the floor and made her stop squirming long enough to look at her eye. There was a scratch on her cornea, about 2 mm across. I just about died--but I didn't; instead I started crying again.

Here we are watching a movie about a blind kid and I poke my baby in the eye with a needle!

Since Rachel was having a grand old time playing on the floor, I wasn't too worried about her. I got one of my eyes all cut up at work once and I was not able to laugh or smile. I was dizzy. I was in pain. My eye lid was swollen. I definitely was not having a good time.

It was quite obvious that Rachel was not suffering as I had been when my eye got cut up. Still I was worried. I had poked my baby in the eye with a needle and there was a scratch on it.

Why do these things always happen at 10:00 pm on a weekend?

Andrew and I finally decided to call the hospital. Of course, they weren't able to give us any medical advice over the phone, but they told us to call our clinic--someone would be on call, we could call them. Who knew? I guess that's why we pay doctors so much.

So I called this doctor at home and told my sob story. I'm surprised he even understood half of what I was saying because I was trying not to cry. My voice is pretty high pitched anyway and when I'm trying not to cry it tends to go up an octave (or five).

He asked if there was any discoloration or bloody discharge.

I said there wasn't--there there was just a little scratch on the surface of her eye, above the pupil.

He asked if she slept through the night.

I said that she usually did.

He said to just put her to sleep then. All he'd do, if she wasn't a good sleeper, was put a patch over her eye so that she couldn't open it.

He said not to worry because eyes are used to getting cut up with little bits of sand and things flying through the air, and that they are made to heal quickly. In fact, he said, he wouldn't be surprised if, in the morning, her eye looked all better, but to call him back if we noticed it getting worse.

Happy Baby!

So, that's what we did. It took a few hours for her to simmer down because she got so excited by how energetic daddy and mommy were acting while trying to figure out what to do about her poor little eyeball.

We finally got her to sleep though and then went to bed ourselves...after I put away that nasty little needle.