103. My Son Burnt His Hands, Overwhelming Mom Guilt and Lessons Learned

Welcome to the momset podcast, my friend. I'm your coach, Tessa Romero. And as a woman of God, an adoring wife, and a mother of three darling boys, I am passionate about giving you the tools you need to build a mindset skill set that enriches your experience through motherhood and daily life. I've had my fair share of challenges and hardship throughout my life, and that is exactly how I came to this place of finding purpose to my pain and helping you do the same. I know we can thrive right where we are at, and it's time for us to take back motherhood by being the mommy that we want to be right right now. Thank you for being here and making this a wonderful place for me to show up alongside you. Oh, my friends, my motherhood community of sisters. Buddy, it's been quite the past two weeks for us over here, and Drew has gotten second degree burns covering both of his hands pretty much entirely, like his entire palm and fingertips. And that is what this episode is about, is about how he burnt his hands and. And the three big things that stood out to me and I was able to take away from that lesson instead of drowning in the mom guilt that I felt. I don't think I've ever felt such a tremendous amount of guilt. And you know what? Rightfully so, I can see how very clearly that was the first thing that I saw was how I played a big, big part in that happening, and I 100% could have prevented that from happening, and I didn't. And that is really hard to sit with. So this is a vulnerable story that I just want to be able to share with you, because when I own my story, it doesn't own me. And the same thing goes for you. When you own your story and experiences in motherhood, they don't own you. And I want to best equip you with how it is that you can, yes, experience guilt and motherhood. Because I've talked about this before. Guilt's a valuable teacher. It's a source of guidance for us to know. I know who it is that I want to be. And clearly there's something that I'm doing right now that's outside of alignment with who I want to be. And that's how I hope that you view guilt too. So we need to be able to talk about it together in order for us to share that perspective. So I'm just going to tell you the story of how it all happened with Drew, and then I'm going to share my three big takeaways from this experience. And just a little update on my sweet Drew me guy, because I had no idea how common burns are. No idea, until I shared it on Instagram. And it was just like literally hundreds of stories and experiences coming in of how someone else's children has gotten burns in a variety of different ways. And it is so hard to experience. And I just wanted to share our story here, too, because you're an awesome mom and you're totally doing the best you can, and I want us to have a really strong perspective in every circumstance we find ourselves in. So let's get into the story of was a Tuesday evening and about 6:30, which we are, like, well into starting bedtime at 6:30. Drew normally lays down for bed at 7:30, so he's already feeling a little bit tired. And like, we are in our jam, our groove of things. Well, that night, I decided to skip Drew's bath because he was having a little bit of dry skin. So I was like, oh, he's all right. He just won't take a bath tonight. So my older two are in the bath, and I am sitting on my bed folding a basket of laundry with my husband. And we're just lightly chatting back and forth, listening to the boys. And I know that Drew is in the kitchen. I can see him from my bed. I can see him in the hallway where he's standing with his little yodo player playing with the music, and all is well. And at this point in time, I am about 28, 27 weeks pregnant. It must be like a fourth pregnancy thing I. Or just a pregnancy thing in general. I just felt so stinking pregnant in that moment. I was sitting on my bed, and the way that I was sitting, I wasn't getting, like, full breaths in because my belly has gotten so big. And I just felt so pregnant in that moment that I. I felt just tired and large. And I laid back onto my pillow to, like, open up in my. In my lungs and just take a deep breath. And I told my husband. I was like, I just feel so pregnant, so big in my belly. And I was truly just feeling so, so tired. And I saw Drew still in the hallway, and he ended up climbing on top of a box, like, right when I laid back, feeling all pregnant and having my moment. He. He climbed up onto a box and was standing on a box that put him higher towards the counter because the box was pushed up towards the counter. Now, here's an important part of the story for me is the box that he climbed up on. I had had the urge to put those boxes away. There's two boxes stacked. And I had had the urge to put those boxes where they belong in our garage twice that day. And I didn't do it. And that just. I. I don't know why I didn't do it. I just, it was kind of one of those things in my head where I was like, oh, I'll do it later. I'll do it later. Like, pass by it. Yeah, that needs to get done and I'm doing this instead. And I just didn't prioritize it. And it was such a clear. In hindsight, it was such a clear prompting and source of my attention that I just did not act on. And so when Drew climbed on the boxes and I was laying back on my bed, here he goes with his little knees, getting his. Getting his whole body up onto the counter. And I said, drew, come down. And, and you know what the frick good is that going to do with an 18 month old? I mean, did I really expect it to just climb down? No, I think I just was taking one of those steps of, okay, I recognize what's happening. And I just took. I had a little bit of a delay in me of. I'm still feeling so pregnant in this moment and I need to go get Drew off the counter. So I roll my body to the side and stand up. And it was probably a solid like 20 seconds to get myself up from the time that I saw him climbing onto the counter. And I walk into the kitchen to get him and he, boy, he went from our counter, the stretch of our counter to the stove. And as soon as I saw, as soon as I turned the counter, he had his little hands on our burners. So we have four burners and then we have a center griddle that's like a flat griddle in the middle. And I hadn't used those burners that his hands were on that night, so those were completely cool. And he thought it was funny that I was coming to get him. So he starts giggling and moving a little bit faster in his speedy little crawl away from me. And I at this point, am moving much faster towards him because I can see that he's heading towards the center griddle, which I had used that night for dinner. And, and he wouldn't have known that it's hot. Even though I teach my kids the stove is hot, the oven's hot. These are dangerous things. And I teach them. So, so much about was just. He just climbed on the. Climbed on the counter and, and tried to crawl over our Stove. And I swooped him off of our. Of the stove so fast, his left hand probably had two seconds, if that, on the griddle, and then the right hand, like, had barely touched it before I swooped him off. And immediately I looked at his hands, and I just called out to my husband, and I see his sweet little hands, and they are just completely white. And it was very clear that the skin was, like, that surface level of skin was already just, like, completely dead. And that was really, really hard for me. And on top of having the I told you guys earlier in the day, there were two instances that I really felt this prompting to put the boxes away. Well, the second prompting time that I was like, oh, I need to put those boxes away, Drew was over on the far right side of our counter, which, my kids are totally counter surfers, and they help me a lot by sitting on the counter, and we pull up chairs and. And I love to have them included and involved in what I'm doing and on the counters is just a big part of that in our home. And earlier that day, he was on the far right side of our countertops, and I noticed he didn't pull up a chair, and there was no chairs around the counter. And I'm like, how the heck did he get up there? And then I see the boxes stacked up against the the cabinet. And I was like, oh, he climbed the boxes and went from one side of our counter all the way to the other, which means he had to have climbed over the stove in order to do that. And I made that observation earlier the day, and that was again, the second time that I just felt like, oh, I need to put those boxes away. And I just did not act on it. And it was clear as day to me. I didn't put the boxes away. My son had just climbed over the stove to get to the cabinet on the other side. And I knew this is something I really need to take care of, and I just allowed myself to kind of move on to the next step thing. So when Drew burnt his hands in that moment, I was just thinking how, oh, my gosh, like, I had felt the prompting to put those stinking boxes away twice today. I knew already one time today that he had crawled across the stove, and I did not do something about it. And that was really where the source of guilt was coming from for me. Not that my child had gotten hurt with the stove. Like, I totally get that accidents happen, and our kids are independent little beings that love to explore and do all these things. Like, I. I totally get that? And the biggest sources of my guilt were just coming from my part in it and knowing I had a prompting and I didn't listen to it, and I made an observation and I acted very carelessly on that observation. And that was hard for me to sit with because it just. It falls so far out of the mother that I want to be, the character that I want to have, and who I want to be known as. And that's guilt. Like, guilt comes up when we are outside of the character that we want to have, and we are outside of the bounds of who it is that we want to be known as, and we're doing things that just don't align with who we want to be. That's where guilt's coming from. So I understood in that moment that, yes, I feel tremendous amounts of guilt right now. I also am willing to learn from this. And I honestly just, like, sat in the feeling of guilt for the first, like, three hours and just felt so, so bad. And anyway, so at that point, Drew burnt his hands. And I just want to share some things through this episode that I have learned about burns, just in case your kids ever get burnt. I think it. There's just. There's no harm in. In sharing what we learned through our lived experiences. So Drew has tremendous burns on his hands. And I have Shannon Tripp's med medical emergencies kit. Like her goodness. What is it called? Her emergency kit. Like a first aid kit. I have her first aid kit in our home, and I knew from the time that I bought it a couple years ago that it had something to do with burns inside of it. I don't pull it off very often. Pull it out very often. I'm not in it all the time, just, like, proactively learning, which I totally could be spending more time doing with three stinking boys and a baby on the way, you know? So I just immediately called for Mark. I saw Drew's hands, and my first thought of, well, what makes the most sense right now is cold water. Like, he's. We just need to cool his hands down, and I'm going to pull out that kit and I'm going to learn about burns to the best of my ability right now and see if this is something we can take care of at home or do I need to get them to the er So I turn on the water and I have it on cold water, because in my head, that makes sense. Like, hot hands, cold water. And oh, man, if your kids ever experience a burn, just use cool water, not freezing cold. Like my Water was as cold as it could be. And I truly thought that was the best for him that moment. And that actually doesn't soothe as much as just cool running water does. So just word, word, words of wisdom here, friends, use cool water, not freezing cold water, if your kids ever get a burn. So we have Drew's hands under the cold water, and I pull out the medical emergencies kit and I open it up and her. Her. Why do I keep blanking that word? Her first aid kit is really cool. And the reason why I bought it a couple years ago is because it has these key. It has a QR code inside of it. And you scan the QR code with your phone and it takes you to. Takes you to like an education video of how to use everything that's inside the kit. And that's what I thought was like, so, so valuable for me is I love just learning how to use things instead of just like opening up the instructions and trying to read it in a moment. So I open it up, I open up the minor burn thing, I scan the QR code, I listen to Shannon Tripp as she's like, talking about burns. And that's when I learned, like, you want to use cool running water. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, I'm using freezing cold freaking water on his hands. He's screaming rightfully. So I can only imagine how painfully terrible that was for him. So he's screaming the entire time. And truly, I have to say, I did remain extremely calm and I felt very clear minded in, like, every decision I was going to make. Even if I didn't know how I was going to treat everything, I just knew the next right step to take. And that felt really reassuring. So I was super calm. My husband was super calm. My other boys were out with us at that point. So we're like, trying to explain to him while also asking for quiet in this moment as I'm trying to listen to this video and learn. And, you know, they did the best they could too. So the video is talking about cool running water. The difference between first, second, and third degree burns when you need to go to the emergency room. And fortunately for Drew's hands, it was absolutely a second degree burn through his palms and fingertips. And I felt okay with treating it at home because of the video information and just none of the blisters had popped. And apparently that's the real risk of infection is when the blisters pop and knowing, like, how to properly bandage them and things. So I was, okay, let's Just stay home for now. Let's stay calm. Let's do what we can. We used some burn cream that seemed to not work at all and did everything that we can. Well, it was three hours fully, so from 6:30 to 9:30 of holding six screaming drew that I stayed calm for and so did my husband. And my boys were mostly very understanding of Drew, needing just about all of our attention at that time. And again, Drew's feeling like, so tired at this point because he normally goes to bed at 7:30 and so it's much past his. Past his bedtime. Well, staying calm for Drew, I got a cool cloth and, and got that wet with some cool water. And I just wrapped his hands up in that hoping, you know, maybe this will be some more relief for him since I hadn't bandaged anything up. And the blisters were honestly sticking off of his hand by like an inch at this point. They were enormous blisters on his palms especially. So I am still feeling intimidated by the circumstance and unsure of what's. What it's going to look like three steps from now. And again, it's just like that. One step at a time. Here's what I believe to be the next right step. So I get a cool rag and I wrap his hands in it and he's just crying on me. And I'm just feeling like, I just want to be your calm. I just want to be your calm. Like, my calm's big enough to share, and that's where my mentality's at the whole time. Like, I know the next right thing to do. My calm's big enough to share. This is hard for him. I do feel really proud that not one part of my mind made it about me. And I really believe that made all the difference in the way that I was showing up in that moment. So, yes, we're going to go through really hard things as mothers. And the majority of the time, it's not about us. It's when your kids get hurt, it's not about you. When they're up in the middle of the night, it's not about you. When they're in a fight with their sibling, it's not about you, it's about them. And when we can kind of just keep that mentality of my calm's big enough to share and who you're choosing to be for them, it makes a massive, massive difference. Especially in those times where you truly do feel scared and you feel intimidated and you feel nervous and you feel guilty, it makes a huge difference. So Those types of mindsets really helped me in the moment. And as I wrapped Drew's hands in that cold cloth, I decided, like, okay, I'm gonna, like, gently pulse the cloth, trying to get the water, like, trying to prevent the cloth from feeling warm in his hands because his hands still felt hot. So I wrapped him up, and then at that point that I'm, like, gently pulsing the biggest blister on his left hand that was on the stove longer than the right hand popped, and it just was, like, a ton of fluid coming out of it. And at that point, I'm like, oh, man. Like, now, from what I learned in the video, we have the blister open, which means that it's exposed more and our risk of infection is higher. So I finally came to the point of, all right, we are going to do the best we can right now, and maybe we can get him to sleep for the night. So I had my husband start bedtime, and I just said, you know, see if he'll fall asleep, because he was, like, falling asleep on me. His hands just hurt so badly that he was waking back up. So I passed him off to my husband and said, I'm just gonna take a fast shower, and then we'll decide what we're gonna do next. And So I take 10 minutes to go take a shower, and my husband has him in the room, and he really was so calm. We have, like, this cooling pack that we let him hold with his hands, and that helped a bunch. And again, it was just like the discomfort from his hands. He kept waking up, and I get out of the shower and come back in the room about 10 minutes later, and he still wasn't asleep. So I just decided, you know, I. I'm just gonna take him in to the ER and see if. If we can get him some more help there. And I just told my husband, you know, worst case scenario, we go in there and I just learn more about burns, more about how to help and be more prepared and how we're going to care for these burns for however long it takes. Like, I just want to feel more informed at this point, and I'm totally willing to go to the ER for a 1 on one lesson of burns and to be educated. And I felt extremely grateful that we have that option here in our town and within our resources. So I get Drew ready to go, and I am in my pajamas, just throwing some sandals and a light jacket and put them in the car. And it was so crazy. As soon as we got in the car, he was just like, so calm. And I still had his little cooling pack that he could put his hands on. And I hadn't done anything different. He was just so, so calm as soon as we got in the car, even after like truly crying and screaming for the past three hours. So we drive over to the hospital and I take him into the er and they were really great about getting us in quickly. And when they asked me what happened, it was. And just fighting back the tears and just that tremendous guilt coming forward again because I know the full story of how I could have prevented it. So as I'm telling them what happened, it wasn't even that I was concerned or thinking about what they're thinking of me. It was just this total honesty of this is what happened. And, and I already knew my part in that, so that felt really hard too. And anyway, our treatment at the hospital was really, really awesome. I know some other people have had really terrible experiences taking their kids in when they experience emergencies, burns, injuries. And in my perspective, what they told me at the hospital about burns like this is they've seen it as forms of child abuse. And that really just honestly blew my mind. Like, not one part of me thought that that would be a form of child abuse. So I completely understand why they can get. I mean, it's their job to, to make sure that the kids are safe and that they can take care of the kids the best they can at the hospital and that they're going to go back home and be in caring hands, not in hands that are abusing them and using this as a source of abuse. So it really opened my eyes to learn that from them and just have more gratitude and appreciation for the services they offer and truly just the job that they have, where you kind of are in this position to think, worst case scenario, to try and keep kids more safe, and that would be really, really hard. And I felt very fortunate that they were all very seemingly supportive of myself and Drew while we were there. Now, what continued to amaze me was even through the wait, we had about a 40 minute wait in the room while they were coming up with a treatment plan. Drew was just so calm, so calm. He did not cry once at the hospital. And I, I. It just, it still blows my mind. It still blows my mind. And we just walked around our little room and we pointed at monitors and we talked about the lights and the colors and we just kept each other company. We FaceTimed Marcus a bunch. Like, we, as hard as the circumstance was, I just learned so much from it. And I Feel like I've been given this new perspective that I'm extremely grateful for. Several different perspectives that I'm extremely grateful for. So when they finally come back in to treat Drew's hands, they had asked me this, I just wanna share a couple parts of the story that really, like, spiritually were, I mean, enormous for me. And they really just strengthened my testimony and my faith and my trust in my kids. So when they came in, they said, you know, his hands, these are, these are pretty serious, like second degree burns. And this is going to be very uncomfortable process for him. This can be pretty excruciating. So we just have to take it by his tolerance. And they, I could tell, were trying to prepare me for obviously the discomfort that Drew could experience while they need to get it cleaned, bandaged and everything. And I understood that. So they were telling me that they need to administer a pain medication. Well, personally, in our home, we don't do a whole lot of medications. We don't do a whole lot of much anything. I mean, we love our supplements. So I just wanted more information. And she said, I was like, says like, ibuprofen, Tylenol, like, what are we talking here? And she literally said, it's like baby oxy, where it just really kind of like numbs him out and he won't really feel anything. He'll still be awake, not sedated. But yeah, it just kind of like takes him out of the experience so that it's not super painful or traumatizing for him. And I was, when I heard baby oxy, I was like, what the heck? Probably gonna pass on that. And it just. I just wanted Drew to be comfortable. He had already had such a hard past four hours. Now I know my sweet boy feels so, so tired. I'm feeling a tremendous amount of guilt for the part that I played in this. And truly how I see it as being something I could have prevented and didn't like. It was just a lot in a four hour period. And I have three people standing in front of me telling me that, well, we're gonna have to administer the pain medication and we need to do a stronger one than just like an ibuprofen. And now you just need to decide, are we only going to pop the blisters and bandage them and teach you how to keep them clean and bandage them and then when the skin's ready to come off, you remove it at home, or are we going to pop the blisters and remove the skin while we're at it, since we're Already. We're already doing it. And then we'll bandage and send you guys home knowing how to take care of them. And it just felt like such a hard decision to make in a couple ways, where one, do I give them? Do I allow them to administer the pain medication? That just does. In my gut. It just did not. It just didn't feel right in my gut. And, I mean, I. I don't have enough information to make, like, an informed decision. It just didn't feel right. And so there was that hard decision to make, and then there was a decision of, do we just pop the blisters and bandage it and I'll take care of the skin when it's ready to fall off, or do we do it all and have higher chances of keeping everything clean, and then I don't have to remove the skin later when it's ready to come off? And looking at his sweet hands, I just had a completely different idea of what it would be like for the skin to come off of those blisters. And regardless, the skin has to come off of the blister. And I just. I don't have any experience with that. So my mind was all up in imagination land. It sounded and looked absolutely awful in my head. So it felt really hard in that moment to make the decision. There's three people in front of me, this medical staff. And I think sometimes as mothers, we forget that our intuition is very wise and equipped, and we can seek out more information. And honestly, something that we can always do most times is just pause for a minute and give ourselves a little bit more time to consider. And that's what I decided to go for, because I just. I didn't know the ant. I didn't know the decision to make. And that felt really hard looking at these three medical professionals in front of me that are like, so what are we going to do? And I just said, you know, I'd really just like to call my husband first. And when I. When they first told me about the baby oxy while they were still in the room, I looked down at Drew, and he was like. He gave me this look that none of my kids have. I've never gotten to look like that from any of my kids. There was just, like, something in his eyes, something I must have been looking for in him that I've never looked for in my kids before. And it was like he was asking me, do you trust me? And my gut is screaming, like, don't do the pain med. And I want him to be so comfortable, like, I don't want him to have any harder of a time than he's already had this evening. And I look at him and he just has this look in his eyes, like he's just asking me, do you trust me? And in that moment, that's when I felt like, I'll just ask for more time. Like, I'll just, I'll call Marcus and I won't give them an answer right now. I'll just call Marcus. And it felt like this part of me was telling him, yes, I trust you. And it was so important for me to like, that I feel like changed the rest of our experience at the hospital. And truly, just every day caring for his hands since then. We're going on two weeks now. It's changed my entire perspective of caring for him because it's. I don't need to control and make every decision. Like, I can trust him and I don't need to fear the worst case scenarios with him. Like, maybe he is not going to scream the whole time. Maybe it's not going to be extremely painful. Maybe it's not going to be this image in my mind that sounds so awful. Maybe it's not going to be that. And I can absolutely trust my son, just like he's trusting me right now. I mean, he's in total trust of me and that I'm just so grateful that I had the opportunity to look at him in that moment and actively seek out more opportunities of just trusting my kids. Like, let me just trust you to do the right thing. Let me just trust you in this experience, in this moment. Let me trust you more. It's something that I've been really focusing on in the past two weeks. And it's been such a blessing, Such a blessing. So I asked for more time. I said I was going to call Marcus and they're like, okay, no problem. We'll be back in when you have your answer. I was like, okay, awesome. So Drew and I sit down back on the bed and we FaceTime Marcus and I let him know the options that I was given and all the information that I had. And he had other questions. And I'm like, well, this is the only information that I have. So we're all doing the best we can here. And this, this part that just felt so. I mean, this is how I literally made the decision was when I was talking to Marcus on FaceTime, I told him about the pain medication. And as Drew and I are on FaceTime with Marcus, I tell him about the pain medication. Drew shook his head. No. As soon as I said the pain medication, and it was just so. I don't know, it was just like. It was just what I needed. Like, it was just, like, confirmation that I needed that. It's okay for me to just trust my gut on this one. It's okay for me to say no. It's okay for me to just trust Drew and for us to go into this experience ready to do what he can tolerate and understand that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I don't need to know the next 10 steps. I just need to know the decision I want to make right now. What's the next best step for us to just. Like I was doing at home. I just need to know the next best step that I want to take right now, not what it's going to look like 10 steps from now. And so I told my husband, you know, I'm just. Because I. Drew shook his head, I was like, you know, I'm just going to tell him that we don't need the pain medication. They can pop the blisters for us and teach me how to clean it up, bandage it, and, you know, when the skin's ready to come off, we'll just take it off, like, it'll be okay. And he's like, okay, like, I think that's great. I trust you. Keep me updated. So I call the doctors back in, and I let them know I want to decline the pain medications. I would like to just hold them while we're doing this. And I only want you guys to pop the blisters and just leave the skin on, and we'll take care of at home when the skin's ready to come off. And I. I'm really interested to learn how to properly bandage it, learn how to properly care for it, and what the. What the next amount of time is going to look like for us. So I know what to expect and how to keep it clean. And I was just so proud of myself for literally asking any question that I could think of. Like, we garden a lot in this time of year. And I was like, so with these bandages, I want to. We normally garden. Like, I still want him to be able to play outside. What should I be avoiding? And they're like, oh, yeah, we for sure want him to avoid, like, getting the bandages wet with the hose. And I'm like, oh, that's like, yes, thank you for reminding me of that. And we want to reduce the risk of infection, so make sure you just keep his hands out of the dirt. It's still okay to go outside. Like, all these things. And it just felt like I can ask literally any question that I have. And I was really proud of myself for doing so. Now what's really just amazing to me about this entire experience as well was as Drew and I were laying in the bed, Drew's on my chest and over my big belly and laying back on me, and he has his hand extended outward towards the doctor, and I'm kind of, like, holding his elbow out so that they can have his hand, and my other hand is just, like, rubbing his belly on his chest, just trying to be a source of comfort. And the whole time, from the very beginning that this team. There was four people in the room helping to care for Drew the whole time. I'm telling you guys, he did not cry once. Not one wince, not one cry, not one wine. No, nothing, Nothing. And I truly believe it was just him, like, melting into my calm. And I love. I love the mindset. My calm is big enough to share, and that experience with Drew really taught me that it's not even that my calm is just big enough to share. My calm is more than enough to share. It's a blanket of safety that my kids wrap up in, and they get to soften into and surrender into and just observe what's happening without these tremendous fears within them, because I'm there. And that's what I learned that night about just how important my calm is. Like, it truly makes all the difference. And I mean, sweet Drew, he just blew the whole medical staff away. He blew me away. And the whole time that they're working on his sweet little hands, like, the. The doctor goes through, and she's like, hey, we're gonna pop the blisters. And I was like, okay. So I tell Drew, like, oh, we're gonna count. We're gonna count your owies. So we count, like, with each blister that she pops, we're counting them. And I'm talking to him about, oh, today we played outside with Liam and Luki, and I was like, oh, do you remember Liam? Is Liam your biggest brother? And he's like, shake. He's, like, nodding his head yes to my questions. It was so sweet. And we just kept talking about dad and Liam and Luke and our day and singing his favorite songs and his favorite poem. And I just kept singing to him the whole time. The whole sinking time. I just. I just kept doing what I know how to do, and I let the people that I trusted to come in and help us do it. They know how to do that I'm learning how to do from them. And I just felt like, even though I don't know everything to do in this moment, I do know the next right decision to make. And sometimes that decision is just singing to my child while I learn about burns and I learn about blisters and caring for them and cleaning them. It's not his job to learn all of that. It's mine. And I just felt so grateful, so grateful, and in that moment, that this was the experience that we got to have together. And again, Drew impressed the doctor so much that he was just completely still, completely calm. And literally the entire time that they're working on his hand, Drew's staring at his hand, like, watching them, and he's looking up at the doctors, watching them, and he's, like, talking to them, like, oh, what's that? What's that? He likes to say, what's that? And Nana a lot. And so he's, like, talking to them, staring at his hand, looking at the doctors, and I'm just singing away, singing his little favorite songs and talking to him and keeping this, like, really soft tone. And the doctors were so impressed. The lead doctor in the room was like, well, I just really feel like we should try to see how he does with removing the skin. I am so impressed with how calm he's staying with popping the blisters. So let's just try to remove the skin. So she gets out the tweezers and scissors and just starts cutting away at all the skin that was covering that burnt area that had blistered up. And again, Drew just watched, and he was so calm, and I was so calm, and I. I'm just so proud of us. I'm so proud of us. And after that, he got to. They taught me, like, washing his hands and the. Like, the antibiotic ointment to use on it and how to bandage it. And. And just. Just everything I got to learn everything in this chosen environment that we got to stay calm in, and I got to set a tone that I could tell others could feel. And most importantly, I just could tell was, like, wrapping. Wrapping up Drew. So they told us it would be about two to three weeks of. Of bandages and how to treat the burn, how to treat those areas and things. And they're like, yeah, you just need to change the bandage once a day. So the next few days, though, Marcus and I are, like, trying to figure out bandaging a little baby's hand, and we were changing the bandage, like, three or four times a day, trying to Just get it to stay on. And, and it was like quite the experience. And even, I mean we got back home that night, he hadn't been given any medications at the, at the hospital. I did give him some ibuprofen when we got home and put him down to bed and I was fully prepared in my mind to be up with him and spend, spend the night with him, give him what he needs. And I was honestly just like, I can do that for him and that feels really good. And I was like looking forward to it. And then he slept through the night until 9 o' clock the next morning because he didn't go to bed till close to midnight. So. And I just again, he blew me away that he slept through the night and he blew me away the next morning when he woke up just so cheery and bright eyed and happy to play with his brothers and still just doing all the same things. And again, my mind is like, okay, he's probably not going to want to use his hands and I need to encourage him to use his hands and he's not going to want to. So I'm, I'm gonna have to stay really patient with that. And I'm like preparing myself and first thing, he's like wanting to do everything with his hands still. And he was still learning like, oh, what feels tender when I do with my hands? And he was just so okay with learning and this experience that he had. And I, I just keep thinking that it was, it's because of my okayness and my assurance that I could give just through my tone and my calm, wrapping him up in that blanket. And every time we've changed his bandages, if it was four times a day now, we have gotten a little bit better in our skill set. It's about, it's once a day now. And through all that time, like he's just been so understanding. He's been so like singing songs with me. He gives me kisses, friends, he gives, he kisses me when I'm changing his bandages. And I just, I'm so grateful. He's truly just the world's greatest little patient that I could ever ask to care for. And it's opened up my eyes a lot, A lot. And I'm just really grateful. So Drew is doing so, so good. There's still skin coming off and we, he's in his bandages still. Most of the blisters on his fingertips are gone, which we're really grateful for. So it's been healing really nice and we've been able to avoid infection which was A huge just worry of mine, and we were able to avoid that. So overall, I feel so spared in the entire. In the entire experience. I just feel so spared. And while it's not something I would have chosen for Drew or myself to go through, I did learn a few really important things, and that's what I want to spend just a minute recapping here with you is. Number one, my calm is not only big enough to share, it's more than that. It's a blanket of safety that my kids wrap up in. The second really big thing for me is immediacy with promptings. When I get a prompting, it. I act immediately on it now, and I really don't freaking care if they're just boxes. Oh, they're just boxes. Whatever. I can put them away later. No, this is a prompting, and it's important, and it's likely linked to something that I Is not even near my radar right now. So how about I just listen to the prompting, put that. Put the dishwasher tabs up in the cabinet, put the boxes away in the garage. Like, it's not about this clean home. I mean, cleanliness and order and organization really help me tremendously as a mother. And that's what I've been associating so much to, is just like, my mental headspace feels so much better when things are clean and orderly. And it's just so much bigger than that. It's so much more than that. It's truly just the. The safety of our family is sometimes dependent on these. On these promptings that we get as mothers. We get these promptings to put something away, to clean that up, to. To get that out of the house, to put the dog out back, like, whatever it is. And. And sometimes we just don't follow the prompting because we don't know why it's there. Like, well, I don't know. I don't know why I'm, like, having this urge to put it away right now. I just won't do it because I don't know why. It's okay if you don't freaking know why. That's what I'm leading with now is. I am immediate with my promptings. Like, immediacy is what I want to see more of myself. And it feels unfortunate that it took Drew burning both of his hands for me to get back into this immediacy and motherhood and with my promptings. And I'll tell you, it's been two weeks, and I have most certainly been immediate with what I have felt. If it's oh, put those dishwasher tabs up in high cabinet above the microwave. Like, I do it instantly. And cleaning something up, putting something away, Checking on my kids. As soon as I. As soon as I think of. Are they still in the backyard? Like, are they. Are they in the garden? As soon as I think something, I am acting on it now, and I've just. I've loved seeing that rekindled in myself, and I know this is who I truly am, and this is a big part of my character and my motherhood, and I'm proud of it. So immediacy with promptings is something that's been a big takeaway for me, and I hope that it's a source of encouragement for you to know that it's not about a clean house, and it's not. It's not about so many things that our mind likes to associate it with. It's just about the bigger picture of you don't know why you have that prompting, and it's there. So listen to it, follow through on it, and just trust that that was for the greater good, that that got done. And then the. The last thing that really stood out to me was with the mom guilt part, how I felt just like so much tremendous mom guilt for the first three hours. And I think that's really healthy for me to experience. And what helped me work through that feeling is spending more time thinking about the lesson than the outcome. And for me, the biggest lesson was immediacy with promptings of. If you got a prompting to move that box and you made an observation of how Drew climbed across the counter earlier that day, then you act immediately on it. And again, like when I took my lessons away from it and I allowed myself to protect my character. Immediacy is within my character. Calm is within my character. Being somebody that asks questions is it is in my character. And showing up as the mom that I love to be, no matter who I'm around or what room I'm in, is a part of my character. So I didn't allow any guilt to turn into shame, and I didn't allow shame to take any. Any spot of that night. And shame is an attack on self. So I feel. I know very often mothers are operating in a source of shame, and they're attacking their character. They're attacking who they are as people. And sometimes when we do things that it's like, oh, gosh dang it. I even thought about that earlier in the day, and I didn't do it. It's like this prime opportunity for Shame to come in instead of just realizing this is the feeling of guilt. And it's a focus on behavior, not character. I have the character to be immediate. I have the character to be calm, patient, curious, and set a tone that I'm proud of no matter where I am and who I'm with. So let me just learn the lesson from the behavior to ensure that I make better choices moving forward. And I see improvements in myself. And it's so nice because it's not about perfection. It's so great that we don't have to be perfect. And you, I'm telling you, my friend, you will do so much better just on a daily basis and see more sides of yourself that you actually want to be seeing when you allow yourself to feel guilty and learn the lesson behind it. The lesson for me was immediacy with promptings. Everything outside of that was just confirmation of, this is who I really am. I really am calm. I really am this curious mother that wants to learn. And I really am so tender and so grateful and so faithful. And I know that I am spared in this circumstance, and so is Drew, and that helped me just move forward. So we're not meant to live in a state or a place of guilt. We're not meant to allow our guilt to turn into shame. All of these are human emotions, and sometimes there's just so much focus on. You need to feel your feelings, and I think it's ironic that nobody tells you how long you need to feel them. So, yeah, I felt really guilty for three hours, and I do not feel guilty anymore. I learned my lesson. I've improved my behaviors, and I know that my best form of character is. Is coming forward because of that circumstance, and it's something that I can own so that it doesn't own me. So I hope that this episode and just this perspective was something that showered you with reassurance that you truly are the very, very best mother for your children. And you're chosen as their mother, and you get to decide who you are, no matter where you are or who you're with. And that is one of our greatest gifts is. Is that we get. We have a choice, and everything that we're given, we have a choice. So thank you for the just tremendous love and prayers for Drew. It has certainly wrapped us up, and. And I'm just. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for you, this space, and to be a mother. It's. It's just the best. So I love you guys dearly, and I'll talk to you real soon. Oh, my sweet friend, thank you for joining me on this week's episode of the momset podcast. Please take a minute to leave a review and share the show. If you loved it, I'd love to stay connected as we continue to learn and grow in motherhood right alongside each other.