Last week while I was getting ready to go out, Owen reached up onto my bathroom counter and burned his finger on my hot rollers that were heating up. After a few tears (more from being surprised than burned, I imagine) and a cuddle with “Boo Boo Guy” (a frozen happy face gel pack that heals all wounds), he was pretty much over it. He kept holding up his thumb and saying “I got a boo boo”, when really I could see a little welt starting to grow on his ring finger. Side note: it’s so interesting to me how kids don’t always know exactly where their pain is coming from (which is why some dig in their ears when they are teething or can’t tell you what hurts).
The next day I noticed that little red welt had grown a bubble on top of it and it looked like it was about to burst. Not too long ago, on the morning of Owen’s birthday party in July, my upper arm had a run-in with a hot cookie sheet straight out of the oven,which bubbled up in exactly the same way, so fortunately (unfortunately?) I am quite familiar with the stages of a burn. As such, the bubble didn’t really worry me, but I knew that it was probably going to hurt until that pressure was relieved.
So I said, in my brightest and happiest voice, “Oh! Your boo boo got a little blister! Let’s go pop it and then you can put a super special car band-aid on it.”. You guys, he has been DYING to use one of those car band-aids since I bought them at the store months ago, so I knew this would be just the ticket to get through the blister popping without a lot of drama. I chattered away with him to distract him while I sterilized a needle and popped the blister before he even had a chance to see what I was doing.
For someone who used to pass out at the sight of a needle at the doctor’s office, I sure have come a long way. I know it was only a minor first-aid moment, but I felt like supermom. And, just as I suspected, it was a total non-issue and the car band-aid was worth the boo boo.
Since then, the skin has peeled away and he’s left with a little red mark on his finger. Last night he was looking at it in the bath and said, “What’s dat, Mommy? It’s my PLOP. I got a PLOP.”
It took me a minute, but then I realized. A plop. His little brain smooshed “blister” and “popped” together and it became a “plop”.
I love it.
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