Congratulations! This really is a right of passage and more or less one that we all get to experience. From what I can see, knowing friends with their own children, the ordeal from your side of the bargain, not mothering from a distance but leaving her in charge is an accomplishment, and wise.
In an adult conversation with my mother when I was in my thirties, she revealed how much she had worried about me, my brother and sister. She had a lot to worry about, the three of us were a little on the adventurous side but, according to her, "I rushed in where angels fear to tread". It honestly never occurred to me that she, or anybody actually worried about me beyond childhood. Childhood kind of ended when I was about 14.
Around Christmas time our parents went out of town for the night, the first and only time I remember them gone overnight. It wasn't a big deal, my 19 year old brother was home from college for the holidays. He was downstairs in the shop, as was my little sister. The table saw was running when suddenly it jammed, dramatically dimming the upstairs lights for a moment. Doing the dishes, I stood quiet, listening to the sounds coming from the basement door. I thought I had heard my sister scream just as the saw stopped and the next sounds weren't going to be encouraging. My brother bounded up the steps, pulled open the basement door and ran to the kitchen sink where I was and began to run cold water on his hand. Eventually he was able to look at the damage and told me to get the neighbors to run him to the hospital. My sister had been playing with something that startled her and had screamed, my brother had been cutting something more suited for two people and had snagged his thumb on the moving blade and I was left with a seriously upset little sister and little trust in the neighbors taking my brother to the ER.
After a long hour or so of waiting for word from the neighbors I called all three of the hospitals asking about my brother. The third hospital was actually a VA facility and I only called them after the other 2 couldn't find him. I cleaned up the kitchen and backtracked his steps, cleaning up the drops of blood all the way to the table saw. It was as if someone dropped a blood filled balloon on the spinning saw blade. Blood was spattered on everything, the ceiling light had a spray as the saw and blood drew a line across the ceiling, floor and down the opposing walls.
I was beginning to think about the frantic events of the evening and worry about my brother when the doorbell rang. I rushed to the door, my little sister on my heels and it was like special delivery, carollers were standing in the yard. We stood in the cold night air and listened to a carol, we all waived at each other and we went back into the house. It was just what we needed that moment. It was possible to get my sister calmed down enough to sleep and I was comforted by the knowledge that the world was still turning.
The following night well after we had gone to bed our parents arrived home. I was laying on my side facing the door when I saw the silhouette of my mother as she looked at me and looked over at my brother, his thumb stitched and hand bandaged, propped up by a pillow wrapped around his forearm, it looked like a comic hitchhiker's sign. As soon as she realized what she was looking at, she whipped around and walked away down the hall. In a few minutes my father looked in at my brother and quietly went to bed. If he was awake when they were looking in on us, he wins the award for best fake sleep.
My brother was up early, joining our parents for breakfast and confessions. Our darling little sister had been awake when the folks got home just dying to tattle on my wounded brother. His thumbs, both of them have been put through the mill, his left thumb was opened up carving the wrong way with a hunting knife at 13 and he managed to run the pad of the right thumb into the saw twice in the split second he was distracted that fateful night. Between the two he's had 33 sutures, 24 with the table saw. You can only tell how much damage was done by looking at the thumb pads together. The left thumb still has scars from the stitches, crossing a thin scar line and resembling an alligator looking at it from the side. The right thumb is missing the pad for the most part, making for a very thin thumb with two saw blade wide scars forming a "K" like pattern across his pad.
My one night trial in fact was mostly perception. I discovered how much we rely on adults, and that was my take-away. It's a growing up experience and your daughter did much better. You came home to find nothing to worry about and that makes every new step easier to do, for everyone.
Kudos,
LL
