Worst Date Ever!

Yesterday was Craig and my first date out of the house without Lucy since we are in Kansas right now and she is comfortable enough with Grandpa that I didn't mind leaving her. It's been 20 months coming and we had been planning it for a little while and were both really excited about it. When Lucy and I woke up from our nap, she was in a bit of a cranky mood but seemed fine once she and Grandpa went out to explore the yard so Craig and I took off.

Our plan was to walk around downtown for a little while then head off for a nice Italian dinner. The downtown area here has lots of little shops, but unfortunately very few are open Sunday afternoon. But we were still enjoying the chance to walk around and talk to each other without interruption. Until we were interrupted.

My dad called and I could hear Lucy screaming in the background. At first I thought she was just having a bad time with the grumpies still but I told him we could come home if she was upset. Then he said that we needed to come home because she had just been bitten by the dog.

I don't know if Craig will ever convince me to leave her again. It's not that I don't trust my dad, I do, the dog bite could have just as easily happened when Craig or I was watching her but I hated knowing she was crying/screaming for me and I wasn't there. It was the longest 20 minutes of walking to the car and driving home ever. When I got there, she was doing a bit better, her face was still bleeding but I had passed along the tip to my dad that she really likes Caillou if he wanted to try and distract her with Netflix. It worked and she was only mildly upset. For the moment.

The bites weren't awful but they were on her face and we weren't taking any risks so we headed off the ER. Once we got there, it got worse. Lucy was not a happy camper. All the poking and cleaning and inspecting was about all I could handle. Especially when I had to hold her down while she looked at me and screamed "Mommy, Mommy!" So when it was time for the actual stitches with her in a baby straight jacket (they call it a papoose, but who do they think they are kidding?  Its a baby straight jacket) I left the room and let Craig be her moral support. I think it helped because when I came back, she saw me as an ally instead of her enemy and calmed down as soon as she was in my arms. She had 4 punctures, two little and two big and each of the big ones needed 2 stitches.

I have a whole new respect for parents of sick children. Watching her be put through that without any understanding of what was going on or why was awful. And I was very frustrated with one of the nurses. The triage nurse was nice as was the one who did the vitals but the nurse involved with the actual procedure was really rough. He was an older man and it seemed like he had never been around kids at all. I know that they have to make sure it is cleaned and bandaged correctly which can involve rough handling with squirmy kids but that isn't what I'm talking about. At one point he was putting gauze with numbing cream on her face but instead of ripping a piece of tape off and using it as a bandage, he put the gauze on her, taped it then tried to hold the end of the tape down on her face to rip it off the roll, pressing down on her swollen bleeding baby face! I think he realized that was a bad idea because he tried to do it differently the second time but he put the tape on upside down so it was sticking to his fingers instead of her face, then he snapped at me for not holding her firm enough. I held my "mama bear" tongue but I really wanted to say something snarky, like "If you don't know how tape works, it doesn't really matter how still she is." I know some great nurses so it was just frustrating that we didn't have one and it made things harder on Lucy. I really hope he is not on call when we got back on Friday for the stitches to be removed.

We finally got home about 2 hours after her bed time. I had promised her some tater tots. She tried them for the first time Saturday night and loved them and since Sonic was the only fast food place between the ER and our house that I knew of, it worked out well. She calmed down and ate her tot-heavy dinner, then we finally got her ready for bed.

My dad had came to the ER but once we got home, we called the MPs to file a dog bite report. First they tried to take a picture of Lucy's wounds for the report. Bad idea. She was understandably cautious and not at all happy with yet another stranger trying to take a look at her so he gave up and we put her to bed while poor Kip was carted off to be quarantined. It was probably a good thing it took us a couple hours at the ER, it gave Craig time to calm down before he had to be in the same house as the dog again. Don't send us hate mail, he isn't an animal hater (except for this one), he's just protective of his little girl and you hurt his baby, you'd better watch out.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened with him since my Dad said it happened so fast he doesn't really know either. They had just come in from playing and were looking in the fridge for a snack when Kip came into the room and ran up to them. He is a lab mix and much bigger than Lucy so even if she pushed him, I can't see it really hurting him but perhaps he thought she was standing between him and food. That's my best guess.

He's not a vicious dog, it just takes a special type of dog to be toddler safe and Kip is obviously not that. Right now I think the plan is for him to stay in a kennel for his quarantine period then find a new home, maybe with my brother and his wife, who don't have kids, live on an acre and have a more flexible work schedule. If that works out, it really will be the best for him since he wasn't getting the attention or exercise he needed here. Before my mom got sick, she took him on lots of long walks and worked with him to keep his alpha personality in check. My dad has been struggling to just get him the walks he needs while working but that still leaves him home alone all day. He probably should have been gone a while ago but it gets tricky since he was my mom's favorite dog. All our other dogs were family dogs, golden retrievers that loved indiscriminately. Kip loved my mom, she loved him and the rest of us put up with him. That said, he is a smart dog that will really thrive if he has a firm owner and the exercise he needs. I hope it works out, I just don't want him anywhere near my kid ever again.