Poor Baby Knuckles!

Today it was so nice and cool out, finally.  After a run of 100+ temperature days, it was only in the low to mid 70s today.  It was threatening rain, but held off most of the day.  Bill and I decided to go for a walk around 11, just after she'd eaten an early lunch.  This morning, she slept late so I had to bring her breakfast with me to church, and she was pretty hungry when we got home.  So she had lunch about half an hour earlier than usual.  The last few times we've gone for walks, Karina has been quite slow and hesitant, wanting to be carried the whole way.  So I got out her little baby doll stroller, so she could push it.  She loves having something to push.  We were on our way. 

Down the street, around the corner, down the block to the next corner.  This is a 4-way stop, so we're always extra careful here; plus people tend to speed down the street along which we were walking, so we really make sure nothing is coming.  Two young ladies stopped and commented on how cute it was that Karina was pushing the stroller.  One of them was pregnant and asked about things like talking and walking.  Then we started to cross the street.  (Don't get scared, nothing bad happened with any cars) There were no cars coming at first, so I was letting Karina push the stroller.  She was going pretty slow, but moving, and then I noticed a car coming up to the stop sign.  I picked her up and grabbed the stroller and we went on across the street.  When I put her down I said, "When we cross the street, you can't dawdle.  We have to go fast across the street in case cars come."  She got back behind the stroller, and started off--fast.  Too fast.  She lost her footing and went down.  Her hands, still holding the bar of the stroller, smashed onto the cement and she scraped both her thumb knuckles plus two other knuckles on her right hand.  She started screaming crying, practically hysterical.  We started for home, but she cried even more.  We turned back and she finally calmed down, so I just carried her as we walked down two more blocks before turning back for home.

When we got home, I took her upstairs and rinsed off her little fingers and then put on the Johnson's Cream.  You would have thought I had put hydrochloric acid on them the way she screamed. I was sooooo careful, too.  I know how much it hurts to scrape up your knuckles!  I decided she must be overtired, so I tried singing and rocking her.  Hysterics continued.  Maybe she was still hungry?  I took her downstairs, and she reached for the refrigerator, but she didn't really want anything in particular from in there; it was just a thing to do to try to be in control and avoid her nap.  Conclusion: overtired.  Back up we went, and back to singing and rocking (standing rocking, not in a chair).  For probably 30 minutes I just rocked her in my arms, and about every few minutes she'd cry again.  Heaving sobs, and then her little nose had gotten so stuffy from crying, she'd cough from it.  Finally, I could see she was pretty much asleep and just crying fitfully, so I put her in her crib.  She cried one little bit, and then slept peacefully for 2 1/2 more hours. 

Bless her little heart poor baby girl.  She woke up fine, and we played on the back porch for a long time, where she helped me organize my toolbox and a bunch of random nuts/bolts/screws/picture hangers into a little hardware drawer unit.  As it got closer to dinnertime, she started getting cranky again.  Anything different from her routine can really throw her off sometimes.
Happily, she is sleeping now quite peacefully.  Now, it's my turn!