Blood

Tilly was crawling around on the floor and seemed quite happy.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see her doing what looked like press ups, I guess she was playing and experimenting.   All of a sudden she just released her head and her face sped towards the hard laminate floor and I heard the bump as it made contact.  Her cry started, one of those cries that starts with a big intake of breath followed by silence, the length of the silence usually tells me just how much something hurts.  I scooped her up off the floor, after a long silence, her face red, eyes full of tears and her mouth wide open the howl finally came.  I expected that she'd hurt herself badly and I was right, her lips had been caught between the floor and her teeth and blood had started to show in her mouth.   I'm not sure if it is because I knew how she'd injured herself but I was surprised how remarkably calm I was.  I don't really like the sight of blood, especially in other people.  I took her into the kitchen to get a tissue and find something to placate her and take away the taste of the blood.   I popped her on the kitchen counter and gave her a tiny Milky Way little star, which although hadn't removed the shock completely was certainly helping. Richard had followed us into the kitchen, looking very concerned and worried she seemed to pick up on this and start again.  Richard is usually the calm one in things like this and I'm normally the one panicking and over-reacting.   After a few minutes she was OK.  Her lip is swollen and is clearly sore but perhaps she'll have learnt not to drop her face to the floor in future!