Paging Child Protective Services ...

Officially, I am a terrible father. A danger to Celeste. I should be working normal hours (or probably any of her waking hours, just to make certain I am not left in a position of responsibility again).

It's cold today, 19°F or so, so going outside with Celeste means a snowsuit of somesort, which means she's too bundled to fit comfortably in the BabyBjörn and even the carseat is a struggle. That's where the problem starts.

Given when Celeste was sleeping and eating, I thought we'd have time to run to the grocery. All was going okay (she was protesting the snowsuit + carseat situation), except that I was trying to hurry things along while getting the straps snapped and the carseat bumped the CD tower, which is in a terrible place and it didn't help that a small stack of discs (in jewel boxes) was sitting atop the tower.

Before I go any further: Celeste is okay. I however am psychically scarred.

Several discs fell down into the carseat, with at least two striking Celeste on the head. There was that mamasecond of a pause before either of us realized what had happened and the crying started. Needless to say the grocery trip was postponed.

I got Celeste out of the bucket and tried to comfort her. Finally a lot of soft talking, expansive apologies, and a pacifier soothed her enough to ditch the snowsuit and to settle in for some quiet sniffling.

That's when I started checking the books. Surprisingly enough, neither What to Expect the First Year nor The Baby Owner's Manual has "CDs Falling on Head" in the index. Checking the "bumps and bruises" and "head injury" sections, I checked the danger signs vs. Celeste's symptoms. It looked like things were okay, but I also googled baby hit in head. (This was probably the most helpful result.)

As suggested everywhere, I tried a cold compress, but that just started the crying again.

After more comforting, I put her in her exersaucer and she seemed happy enough, except that she refused to look at me. I'd scoot into her line of vision, and Celeste would turn and look at the toy to the left or right of me.

I called Evelin, who said to call the doctor if I thought it would make me feel better. I tried, got the answering service, but didn't leave a message. Scanning their list of emergency signs, none of Celeste's symptoms matched, so I didn't think I should take up a place in the queue that was needed by someone with a real emergency. I called Evelin back, and at this point she was teasing and laughing at me a bit.

Truth be told, Celeste's probably had harder blows when she headbutts my chin, but those don't make me feel like I'm doing a very good job as a caregiver either ...