Julia Proverbs: Downside to a burning butt

Being a particularly active and spirited wee dot, I spend a fair bit of time trying to get Miss Three to sit on her bottom.

But now I am in the position of trying to find ways to keep her off it.

Because she has a blister the size of a dessert spoon on it.

Miss Three has burnt her bottom, after getting a little too amorous with the gas fire.

It has become a nightly post-bath ritual to dry her peachy derriere in front of the fire but, on Saturday night, she breached the cordon and was stung.

The cordon being a mat placed in front of the fire at a safe distance; a ruling introduced when the fireguard broke and we simultaneously decided the girls were old enough to heed our warnings.

I am not entirely sure what happened on this occasion but I can only guess she ran excitedly into the living room and misjudged her bum-to-fire co-ordinates.

Feeling like the worst mother in the world, I bundled her up in her Angelina Ballerina dressing gown and paid a visit to Accident and Healthcare, where thankfully no one scolded me for failing to implement basic safety measures.

In fact the nurse was kind enough to share that the same thing had happened to her as a child.

Meanwhile Miss Three was screaming the place down, as a thick white cream was lathered on to her right cheek.

(Although I suspect the fact that she had been woken after happily falling asleep on the way there had more to do with it than having her wound dressed.)

I left sheepishly, my guilt burning as hot has her butt and, after tucking the cherub into bed, started searching on Trade Me for a fireguard.

I expected Miss Three to have a restless night but, miraculously, she had the best sleep in a long time and woke forgetting that she had a bandaged bum.

When she was reminded, she thought it was a big joke, given that anything with the word "bottom" in it is hilarious to a pre-schooler.

"Look in the mirror?" she pleaded as I pulled the dressing back to reveal an angry, red and now burst blister.

"Funny," she chortled.

"Are you going to do it again?"

"No," she answered, her tone suddenly changing.

Looks like we both learnt a lesson.