Chloe’s Lesson
Chloe, poked her finger with the point of a knife while cutting carrots with her mother. At first she just called out for a Band-Aid as she passed my office on the way to the bathroom, but that was before she had seen the wound. It wasn’t a long cut, but it did go straight in to her little finger and once it started to bleed it bled a steady stream and looked pretty ominous to her Of course, once she looked at it it scared her and suddenly hurt a lot more than it had before and she was seriously crying. We managed to convince her not to look at it as we tried to calmly talk to her and assess what needed to happen. I was able to stop the bleeding and pull it together with a Band-Aid and she was ecstatic that she didn’t need stitches.
It reminded me of when I had a wart on the top of my finger when I was a little girl and my uncle, the doctor, was going to burn it off. He gave me shots to deaden it, and the shots worked, but as he got this tool out and began to burn into my finger the tears streamed down my face. He asked me if it hurt and I said, “It should hurt.” He asked me again, “But does it hurt?” “Not yet it doesn’t”, I answered. “Well then why are you crying about it?” “Because I’m afraid it will hurt,” I replied. “Maybe you should save those tears until it hurts then,” he suggested, “or you might run out.” And that reminds me of one of my favorite sayings about worry:
“There are only two things to worry about, either you are healthy or you are sick. If you are healthy, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you are sick there are only two things to worry about, either you will get well or you will die. If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you die there are only two things to worry about, either you will go to heaven or to hell. If you go to heaven, then there is nothing to worry about. And if you to go hell, you’ll be so darn busy shaking hands with your friends you won’t have time to worry!” Source Unknown
When Chloe was all taken care of and all calmed down tonight she said, “I’m never, ever going to cut carrots again … ever. It’s too scary to cut your finger.” I said, “Chloe, it doesn’t need to be scary if you decide to learn from your mistake. Next time you help with dinner I’m sure you will be much more careful because now you will understand why it is so important.” “Well, maybe … but my finger has got to get a lot better before I want to think about that,” Chloe replied confidently.
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