All Eyes On Me

A week ago today I experienced one of the scariest moments of my mothering experience.  It was another one of our slow and normal Thursday nights.  We take this night to play outside or go for a walk.  This particular night I asked a good friend of mine to take a walk with our kids.  My daughter ended up falling face first on a bar at the park.  She landed on her nose and I've never seen so much blood.  We ended up taking her to the ER that night to make sure she didn't have a concussion or a broken nose.  After speaking to the doctor and having her checked out for an hour, she was given the ok to go home.  We had to wake her up every four hours that night and we were relieved to see that she was almost back to normal the next morning. The one thing that was different was her nose.  It was big...very big.  There was no bridge between her eyes and nose ran into her eyes as if they were one.  I felt horrible.  I knew it must hurt and all I could do was ice it when she allowed me and keep giving her motrin.  I knew it was only going to look worse before it looked better and it just so happened we had a really busy weekend.

Here we are at the E.R.

Right before she went to bed that night.  She was already back to her joyful self.

The next day at the fair I had her wear sunglasses to hide most of the bruising and swelling.  It helped but we still received many, many looks.  I even heard a few "awww"'s.  

Saturday afternoon we met Adam's brother, wife and daughter at a game center...sunglasses aren't really an option indoors.  So we just sucked it up and went inside.  Once again we got many looks from adults.   I knew they were judging me and wondering if I caused this.  I just kept smiling at them and didn't let it bother me.  

After we left the game center we headed to Goodwill to walk around.  And just like before many people that walked by us would cringe and then look at me.  I once again didn't let it bother me and we kept having fun shopping through Goodwill.  One lady come up to us and she asked us what happened.  I told Liv to tell her what happened.  She said, "I fell."  The lady then proceed to ask Liv in a very forceful tone, "Did you fall or did someone HIT you?"  I let out a little laugh and said that she fell and walked away.  

I wanted to blurt out, "DON'T JUDGE ME!" but I understood why they were.  They don't know me and I honestly might do the same thing.  I would wonder if the kid was getting abused and I would watch the parents behavior to make sure the the kid was ok.  

I didn't let this accident stop our everyday life.  We kept our normal schedule visiting friends, going to the water park and out to dinner with family.  I received many looks and comments directed toward my way about this little girls appearance.  I always kept my cool and answered as calmly as possible.  Even when this teenage girl watched as Liv was having a tantrum at the water park and proceeded to ask me "Umm...do you need help?"  Yes...you may now bring your jaw back up from the floor!  I KNOW! But I answered her with "No, but thank you." 

I realized over this past week that all eyes were on me.  They took one look at my daughter and then turned to me in judgement and seeking out whether I was a fit mother or not.  I could feel ever move that I made and how I parented my daughter was getting analyzed.  

This got me thinking.  Did God use this situation to teach me something?  He sure did.  This was another lesson or step in preparing me for being a foster mom.  Some of my children might look different than I or even physically have some bruises or marks from their previous home.  I will get many different kinds of questions and looks concerning these things.  Some will be innocent while others will be cruel.    How will I respond?  I want to respond in a way that is honoring to my children and in a way that I will make them proud.

Here we are today, still bruised but very happy!