An Early End to Vacation

Mid-morning on Thursday, we headed over for our weekend get-away in Marco Island. We thoughtfully planned our departure around Charlie's nap.  Of course, it wouldn't be natural if we didn't have to turn back to the house three times for various things we forgot (and to go potty one more time).

Thanks to Madi's desire to do everything in one day, we managed to go to the beach and get seashells, swim at the pool, visit the gift shop, eat dinner out at the restaurant, and watch the sunset from our balcony.

Sadly, our vacation was cut short by an alarming accident early Friday morning. Put it this way--we won't be winning any "Parents of the Year" awards.

Shamefully, we left a cup of hot coffee within Charlie's reach. Being the sweetheart that he is, he attempted to deliver it to Jimmy and ended up spilling it on himself. You can only imagine the panic when we heard his blood-curdling screams. THANK GOD for his long-sleeved pajama shirt, which Jimmy ripped off of him immediately. We put him in a cold tub and decided that we needed to seek further medical attention because we were really concerned about his eyes. We weren't sure if they were red because of crying or if they were actually burned by the coffee.

In our panic, we called the front desk and they arranged for a Marriott driver to take us to a nearby urgent-care center.  Unfortunately, the doctor on duty was new and really wasn't able to give us much help other than to take Charlie to a pediatric emergency room. He, too, was concerned about his eyes and wasn't sure how to treat them. The nurses there were a great help. They tended to his 2nd degree burns with cream and bandages, and gave us signs to look for in case of respiratory distress.

Since the closest pedi-emergency room was in Fort Myers, which was 1.5 hours away, we decided it best to pack our bags and head back home. Thanks to the double dose of Motrin (one from us and one from the clinic), Charlie was totally content on the drive home and even fell asleep for an hour.  We drove straight to Joe DiMaggio's Pedi-ER and they confirmed that NOTHING was wrong with his eyes:)  The redness was totally due to crying. THANK GOD once more. The burns on his back/shoulder appeared much better by then with a few blisters. So much more damage could have been done...

We felt terrible to leave our vacation (for Madi's sake, really), but we felt worse about Charlie and knew that he'd be much more comfortable at home. And we were right. He was so happy to be home that you'd never know anything was wrong with him. Because Madi suffered the greatest disappointment, we have promised her a do-over to Marco within the next couple of weeks.

So, now we have to "up" our security level in the house with the realization that nothing is safe with our little guy. He is truly a "Curious George."  We feel SO BLESSED that Charlie is okay.

Today, we breathe a sigh of relief and thank the Lord for our wake-up call that could have ended up in tragedy.