We have entered a bold new world in our family. Elli has progressed in her development (a good thing). Instead of being at the physical level of a 3-6 month-old, she is now more like a 1-year-old... but in a 7-year-old's body (a very bad thing).
In this new stage, Elli grabs everything that comes within reach, and we vastly underestimate the scope of her reach. I remember this now. But with a 1-year-old, you aren't dealing with the height and strength that Elli has. Up til recently, it was more of a nuisance. She gets her hands on food bowls at the table, pulls the tablecloth, grabs at toys left on the floor, and insists on practicing rolling even though she still can only roll one way and gets mad when she gets stuck.
Last week we decided that we have to strap her arms to her wheelchair while we tube-feed her so she won't pull the tube right out of her body. She refuses to obey us when we tell her not to even touch the tubing. So until she can learn some self-control (who knows how long that will be), we have to protect her by immobilizing her arms.
But even pulling her feeding tube out is relatively minor. This weekend she showed us just how much trouble she is now capable of getting into. Thursday night we had to rearrange sleeping quarters and put Elli on an air mattress on the floor. We didn't realize how much she wiggles and how far she can get, even with these leg splints she wears at night. Elli managed to tip over a night table, pull the lamp on it to her, and get her hand stuck inside it. It was a touch lamp, so she was able to turn it on and couldn't turn it off because her hand was stuck. She burned to blisters the entire inside of her pinky on the hot bulb.
What none of us can understand is why she never cried. Not when she burned it. And not after, which hurts worse and for longer than the actual burn does. We didn't realize the finger was burned until the next morning! (These are the things that haunt a mother.)
The next day, she wiggled across another floor to grab the power cord to a decorative lamp. She pulled the lamp down, breaking part of it, and somehow wrapped the cord around her neck.
We are praising God that we caught both incidents before tragedy struck. And we are praying very hard for wisdom and discernment to foresee and avert any other major problems until she gets through this stage. It's a somewhat frightening time for us, and will be very draining as we can no longer leave her unattended safely. I'm praying that she doesn't take longer than a normal 1-year-old to learn all these cause-and-effect and obedience lessons.
