Rough Morning

This morning got off to a great start. Everyone was dressed, fed and ready very much ahead of schedule and even had time to play before we left. This Tuesday was going to be a great one. I just knew it. And the cherry on top is that it's Cate's favorite day of the week. While everyone else is in school, we have a couple of hours to ourselves and then she gets to go to her dance class. That's the one and only extracurricular she's old enough to do, so it's a pretty big deal. When we got home from dropping Towns off at school, she begged to go ahead and put her 'liptard' on. It was still hours before she needed to be dressed for dance, but you know, why not. She's still so tiny so it's hard to find dance clothes to fit her, and her ballet shoes are so small they fit in the palm of my hand. They're so darn cute! When she was fully dressed in her get-up, she asked if I'd take a picture of her and "Elizabef"...

Then she showed me a little of what she does in class...
This is her mid-twirl and oh so excited that it's dance day...

Until Mother of the Year here had the bright idea to leave in time to stop by the grocery store to get food to cook for the fiesta I promised Towns we'd have tonight. It would have been fine, just fine, had it not unfolded the way it did. I got Cate out of her car seat and she was standing beside the passenger's side door waiting for me to shut the door I'd just gotten her out of. Little did I know, she'd stuck her fingers down in the crack of the door that was still open. I slammed it and she let out a scream like I've never heard before. When I realized what was going on I dropped everything and tried to get her little fingers out. No such luck. They were so far in there I had to open the door to get them out, which would have been easy had the doors been unlocked. I fumbled for my keys to press unlock for what seemed like a month. When things like this happen it seems like it's slow motion and you can't do anything quickly. By the time I got her precious little fingers free, her knuckles were already blue, didn't have much skin left on them, and were bent in a way that's definitely not natural. I scooped her up and held her so tight I think I could have cut off her air supply. She cried, I cried. It was absolutely horrible, and it was all my fault. She's a tough cookie, so I knew by her reaction that she was in major pain. Nothing much ever bothers her, and she's never been one to milk it when she's hurt. She doesn't even cry when she gets shots. So when she does cry, she's hurt. When I got her calmed down, I put her back in her car seat and came straight home. I'm not sure which made her more upset...her crushed fingers or having to miss dance. She was pitiful. I doctored her up with some Tylenol, princess band-aids, and pink fingernail polish to take the attention away from her swollen fingers. She told me that it was ok and she knew I didn't mean to do it. I wanted to cry all over again. She also said, "it doesn't hurt too much anymore, only a little much." She's curled up on the couch getting lots of TLC...
So much for being productive today. If you need me, you can find me holding on tight to my sweet Buggy and her all but broken fingers. I have a feeling she's not going to let me forget about this one. She just asked Bethany this morning if she remembered "ripping her arm out of a socket" and us having to take her to the ER. And that was almost two years ago.
Heaven help us...