Life with a Broken Collarbone

A lazy morning with Daddy.

Parenting has gotten difficult lately. Not that it's ever a piece of cake. But this broken collarbone has really thrown us off our game.

Here's the problem. Violet is in pain. I think. I mean, if I ask, sometimes she concurs that yes, her boo-boo hurts. (Of course, sometimes she impatiently gives me a withering what-are-you-talking-about-get-out-of-my-way look.) But she doesn't act like she's in pain most of the time. So we're left to our best judgement to medicate or not.

Plus, Violet is down to one arm. And there is a limited amount of stuff you can do when you're two-and-a-half and can only use one arm. To her credit, it hasn't seemed to slow her down much. She's still on the swing set, climbing stairs, going to her dance class at school. But she's also watching a lot of television. More than she was watching before, when I was already feeling guilty about her screen time.

And we broke one of our sacred parenting rules (seriously, NEVER set a parenting rule. It's just an invitation to break said rule and then feel rotten). We let Violet sleep in our bed the night she broke her collarbone. And then somehow it happened again. And now I'm worried we're verging on forming a bad habit. And our bed is not that big, folks. And even if it was, it's my bed!

So I know we're dealing with a unique situation here. But I alternate between wanting to do whatever we need to just to get through this particular season in our life and being paranoid that we're forming bad habits and raising a spoiled child and it will all come back to bite us next week. Because Violet has had some BAD moments this last week. Some tantrum-throwing, mommy-slapping, the devil must be in you moments. They were ugly. To the point that I have seriously contemplated whether that restaurant fall damaged more than just her collarbone.

I'm wondering if this is a taste of what we're in for when Violet becomes a hormonal teenager. Or if this is just a hurt little girl trying to deal with her frustration and pain. Trying to find the balance is hard. Trying to survive the moments is hard. Parenting is hard.