Sight for sore eyes

I've been blogging with three fabulous women for two years and have been enjoying all the fun topics we come up with week after week. If you want to see what we've discussed in the past, check out our posts here.

This week, Mom of Many asks: Have you ever had an injury stop you from doing something you really wanted to do? How did you deal with that?

Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock

Not to give myself a kaynehore, but I have thankfully never broken any bones. I can't really say I was sidelined from doing anything exciting or important. (Unlike my sister who had to travel around Disney World in a cast when she was in high school and missed a season of Color Guard competitions.)

I've dealt with some ridiculous injuries, but those didn't even stop me from doing stuff I wanted....at least until a few weeks ago.

I love to relax on Shabbat and can usually get through a good chunk of the novel I'm reading during that time. However, a few weeks ago, I was playing with my daughter and she did something where she whipped her hand at my face and managed to scratch my eye. I thought it would be something simple as her poking my eye and a washcloth with water on it would make it okay in a few minutes. No....this was like the time I injured my eye on a shelf right before my job interview. This time, she scratched the "bad eye" (meaning the one I don't see as well out of if the other one is covered). I thought I could get by with keeping that eye covered with a wet washcloth and see out of my good eye. Being in a well lit room made me want to also close my good eye, so seeing anything wasn't really an option. To top it off, my husband was at shul and I was home with all three kids who expected me to make them breakfast when I couldn't even see to get my own breakfast. I had to leave them to their own devices and hope that the boys would keep my daughter out of trouble. Naturally, I found her standing in an empty bathtub demanding to have a bath. The boys were upset that I couldn't do anything for them. And worst of all, I couldn't read! For the most part, I laid in bed with my eye covered and listened for any trouble from the kids. (Since we forgot to turn on the basement light before Shabbat, the kids had to play upstairs.)

When my husband got home, he took over getting our lunch together and watching the kids so I could sleep afterward. The nap helped a little. I was able to get out of the house by late afternoon to go to a gathering at a friends' house. Of course, I looked horrible. Everyone kept asking me what was wrong with my eye and I had to explain that my toddler did it. She had no idea she did anything wrong.

By the evening, it was feeling better and I was able to keep it open for longer periods of time. I'd go back to the washcloth every now and then. It healed on its own and was fine by the next morning. Nowadays, I keep my face away from my daughter whenever she's in one of her moods and acting all wild. She likes to play with my face, so I am very careful to watch where she's putting her hands and move them when they get to close to my eyes. I can't deal with another eye injury! (Especially when it keeps me from reading....)