I put my little one down for a nap around 2 p.m. Ten minutes later I heard a loud thud come from her room. I knew before I opened the door what had happened. She jumped out of the crib. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw, though.

She was still upside down; she had fallen on her head, shoulder and neck. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t crying. I picked her up and held her up. She still didn’t cry. Her eyes were wide open. I brought her into my bedroom and laid her down. I started screaming. Tell Mommy what hurts, please. Are you okay?!? And then she started crying.

She wouldn’t move her neck. She wouldn’t talk to me. She was sobbing. I grabbed my purse and my keys and, without thinking of anything but getting her to the hospital, I ran to the car carrying her crying and begging the whole way. I put her in the car seat. She kept her head turned to the right, chin down the whole time. I kept trying to get her to talk to me. She couldn’t talk. She just kept crying. I was losing my mind. That’s when I saw a police officer doing a registration sting stopping cars in front of me. I opened my car window and started screaming for help. The officer came over, took one look at me, asked me what happened and — once he heard — called for an ambulance.

We got to the hospital pretty quickly. They examined her and sent her right in for an x-ray. I suspected she broke her clavicle. She wasn’t moving her arm and she winced in pain any time I moved her. My suspicion was confirmed. Now the doctor wanted to rule out a head trauma. There was no bump, no bruise. We tried to get her to stay in the CT scan machine, but she was beyond beyond. It wasn’t happening. We took her back to triage. The doctor said she didn’t want to sedate her. We could take her home and watch her. Let her sleep, but check her and make sure we could rouse her. Make sure she wasn’t acting loopy and wasn’t vomiting or having seizures.

When we got home she refused to leave my arms; refused to move. She was — and is — in so much pain. She finally fell asleep. I’ve gone in four times in three hours waking her up, getting her to talk and checking to make sure her pupils dilate.

I am numb and sick and scared. At one point, when we were waiting for the ambulance I put my hands together in prayer and prayed out loud that she would be okay, that it would be nothing. The last time I felt that much emotion was on September 11, 2001 as I  stood in the den clutching my mother, both of us crying for what was happening only 35 miles from our homes. My soul ached that day and it ached again today. And even now, as I sit here trying to digest this afternoon I question whether we should be allowed to love so much or feel so deeply. I’ve never had such a raw, gaping wound in my body as when I thought that something horrible was happening to my precious child. It’s something I never want to feel again, and yet I know that it is inevitable. Kids get sick. They get hurt. They get in trouble. I have to suck it up and deal.

I’m going to lie down now. I don’t think I will be sleeping tonight. I will probably be up for a long time if I sleep at all…

My little girl loves, loves, loves (sorry, Chris) being with Mommy more often. Loves it. She’s like a different child. Where she was wild and crazy with Chris, she’s quiet and thoughtful with me. This morning we woke up, ate a leisurely breakfast and then did “school.” We talked about our colors. For once, she identified them all — no joking around. (She’s been pretending not to know them telling us purple for everything. We were actually worried she was colorblind.) Then she started with her letters. She wanted to write them. I’ll be darned if she didn’t actually write some of them. We got dressed. We went to Gymboree. We came home and had lunch. She went right down for her nap. When she woke up (the sitter was downstairs with Katelyn) I realized she had stripped naked. She was shivering, poor thing. I picked her up, cradled her in my arms wrapped in a blanket and we rocked in the chair. She snuggled deeper in my lap and sighed. She actually sighed.

Meanwhile, my big girl got up with me this morning. She got dressed. She ate a good breakfast. There was minimal screaming when I finger-combed her hair and put her sunscreen on. We were waiting for the bus when it came. The day passed quickly — what with me squeezing six hours of work into four hours. I was putting recycling to the curb when she got home. We chatted as she ate her strawberries, cheese and crackers. She showed me the big scrape she got in gym class. She started doing her homework.

After the sitter left I put them both into a tub while dinner was cooking. That’s where my husband found us: the girls seated in the tub; me seated on the tub with my capris rolled up and my feet in the water. He couldn’t wait to see them and talk to them. My big girl was amenable. The baby started losing her mind. “Mommy, hug you, Mommy,” she said. (Her shorthand for “pick me up NOW.”) And after I left to go to the gym it got so bad that Chris had to put her to bed. My big girl is acting out in other ways. She freaked out in the afternoon as we practiced starting her bike from a standing position. I’d say it wasn’t unexpected, but the fact that she got so upset that she threw herself on the curb facedown crying is definitely not like her. And she’s started saying things like the babysitter likes her sister more and how unfair it is that the baby got to spend time with my mother-in-law on Tuesday.

I spoke to someone today who told me that both girls are acting out right now because of the change. They need to make sure their needs will still be met. They’re not sure how Daddy working in the city will affect our family unit. Heck, I’m not sure, either, so I am going to be really careful to reassure them both that they are loved and that they can count on us — work or not.

I’ve lived my life dealing with those early experiences. I’ve done pretty well for myself. Therapy, a loving husband, good friends. These things have been the glue that brought the pieces of my heart back together. But just like a precious figurine, once you break something so fragile it’s never truly whole again. Sure, it might look the same on the outside but the cracks and glue and repairs can be seen when you hold it up to a light.

My kids, specifically, my older daughter, act as that light. And in my haste to protect my daughter from the same pain, the same fate, I’ve made some mistakes. I don’t lie to her. Ever. But that also means she’s probably been privy to too much too soon. I’m terrified that someone is going to touch her, to hurt her. So I don’t leave her alone very often with anyone. I warn her to be careful. I tell her what negative consequences she might face in specific situations. And Katelyn, with a brain that’s wired for anxiety by DNA to begin with, is now an anxious child.

I read a book for my book club this weekend. Tore through it in a few hours. (Thanks, Wantagh Elementary School for providing your Horizon program kids like me with speed reading lessons!) As I dug into the last chapter I became despondent, hysterical, even. The book is Come Back: A Mother and Daughter’s Journey Through Hell and Back. It’s about a teenager who acts out, cuts herself, runs away, gets hooked on drugs. She was abused as a child. Her mother never dealt with it. The book looks at the psychological reasons behind both mother’s and daughter’s issues. The mother, not surprisingly, is almost as much at fault for her daughter’s problems as the father who abused her and that daughter who didn’t love herself enough to avoid all that B.S.

I identified a lot with the mother. I realized that unless I make some changes, I risk making Katelyn a permanently mistrustful, anxious, angry, and sad human being. I have to realize that just because she looks like me and has a lot of my personality traits, she IS NOT ME. She is Katelyn. She did not come into this world with the same negative experiences I had. Will she get hurt? Yes, but it’s up to me to let her get hurt and be there to support her when she does. There is no reason for her to see the world as a scary, negative place. Her life up until now has been a charmed one. She should be reveling in that. I need to let her feel the joy that she should rightfully feel.

Anyway, this was not an easy post to write. To admit that, although I’ve done lots of things right when it comes to my kids, I’ve done plenty of things that fall into a different area entirely. I said in another post that it was time to love myself the way others around me love me. No easy task, but I am willing to try, for the sake of my girls. Yes, I am willing to try.

Katelyn's cute-as-a-button gap!

My daughter recently lost a tooth. She really lost it, too, since she was eating a bagel at the time. It got swallowed, never to be seen again. I warned her ahead of time that it was ready to fall out. I even asked her to let me help the loss along. I told her she could see the dentist, who would help her remove it. I should have known better. We have trouble getting her into the dentist’s chair when there’s no wiggly tooth involved. We are not alone.  According to a WebMD article, between 9 and 20 percent of Americans say they are afraid of dentists, and that number is probably higher for children, according to experts.

If you’ve got a child who is dental-phobic take note: Dental health — or lack of — is a major problem since early childhood caries (ECC) or cavities is the most chronic childhood illness out there. Yes, you read me right: Cavities are an illness. Left untreated they can lead to infection and abscesses, and can harm permanent teeth sitting below the gum line. There are some very simple steps you can take to make sure you keep your child’s teeth healthy. Here are some ideas we’ve used with Katelyn, our resident dental-phobe.

• Get them brushing — early and often. This might seem difficult. It was for us. What helped: Getting a cool toothbrush and some tasty organic toothpaste. We use Tom’s of Maine, starting out with the fluoride-free and moving to the anti-cavity Silly Strawberry as soon as we knew she was old enough to avoid swallowing it.
• Find a pediatric dentist. This proved to be more difficult for our family. There are plenty of pediatric dentists in the area, but they don’t take insurance, and they are expensive. We found an affordable option at the local teaching college. Dental students, who work along side dentists, can charge far less, but provide cutting-edge treatment. Plus, they’re getting graded so they can’t ask us to leave if the screams get too loud!
• Get your pediatrician involved. Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine found that when doctors get involved asking about and explaining dental health, kids get fewer cavities. If your pediatrician doesn’t ask you about your child’s dental health, ask him or her about what you can do to improve your child’s oral health.
• Go alternative. A recent study in The Journal of Pediatrics found that kids do better when dentists adapt their offices to make them more kid-friendly. For example, bright lights can scare kids. My pediatric dentist, who knew about this study, had kid-sized sunglasses on hand when we got there. Katelyn, who is light sensitive to begin with, loved choosing and wearing her new shades, and seemed to deal with the bright light shining into her eyes much better. The study also suggests that soothing music helps, so we plan on bringing along her iPod on our next visit.
• Hold them close. The same study also suggested wrapping kids up tight as a way to keep them calmer. I’m not going to put my child in a straight jacket, but I can mimic that feeling by sitting on the dental chair and having my daughter sit on my lap with my arms around her.

We’ve got another loose tooth in the house. Katelyn requested an apple today. She wants it to come out on its own. Either way she’s got a dental appointment scheduled in a few weeks. I can’t wait to try a little of my own advice. My dad — her grandfather — was afraid of the dentist. As a result he wore dentures at the young age of 39. My mother, on the other hand, is vigilant about getting her checkups and gum treatments, so she has almost all her teeth at retirement age. Not a bad goal to set for my children.