Screaming Sarah's Rough Week and The Tale of Flippy McBedHog

Sarah had a rough start to her week this week. What started out early Tuesday as an absolutely GORGEOUS, cool morning, turned into a trip to the ER at 10AM. Shall I share?

This is what the sky looked like when I left the house at 6:15 on Tuesday morning to run - it was just so beautiful and cool, it was a really great start to the day! How could things go wrong, right?

So we left the house to get Evie to the pool for swim practice at 9, and I grabbed 3 Capri Suns from the fridge for the kids - 2 Cherry, 1 Kiwi Strawberry. We arrived at the pool and got settled in the shady snack bar area to color and otherwise entertain ourselves. William and Jason were drawing, and Sarah was playing a game on my phone. All was well until Sarah decided she was thirsty, at which point she threw a fit when she discovered she was stuck with the Strawberry Kiwi. Well - being Sarah, she chucked my phone to the ground and then threw herself backwards on the picnic bench, whereupon she rolled off onto the concrete - maybe a two foot drop.

Commence the screaming. I scooped her up out from under the table & sat with her on my lap, trying to soothe her and stop the crying. Since I didn't see anything wrong at this point, I asked her where it hurt & she pointed to her chin. There on the point of her chin was an inch-long split. Not very deep, and not bleeding much at all - certainly not like when Evie did the same thing maybe 4 years ago - but I've seen this before and figured it needed stitches.

Thankfully, Matt was home Tuesday morning & he was able to come get the other three so I didn't have to take the Fab Four to the ER (can you say 'worst nightmare ever'?) Also thankfully, my neighbor and fellow swim team mom, Kim, happens to be an ER nurse - she was at the pool that morning was actually headed into work at 11 so she helped us out while we were there - she even brought me some coffee, which I truly appreciated :)

We arrived at the ER around 10:20 or so, at which point they were a little backed up so we were assigned a room & told to wait a bit. Around 11:30, Kim numbed up Sarah's chin with this fab gel that makes getting stitches so much more pleasant, and brought Sarah some graham crackers and apple juice. So far so good!
At 12, Kent the PA came in and gave Sarah four stitches in her chin. She was a real trouper through the whole thing and only flinched a little bit on the last one. She only lost it and started crying when I, being the fantastic mom that I am, asked her if she wanted to see what it looked like and gave her a mirror. She was horrified, to say the least. I guess she thought they were permanent. When we got home, she was very relieved to see that Evie's chin only has a little scar & not these blue threads sticking out of it...and we are of course keeping it covered with a Band-aid so she doesn't have to look at them. Fair warning, the next picture up is of her stitches, in case you'd like to scroll past...


So 3 hours, 4 stitches, a Happy Meal and a Band-aid later, she's all happy again and back to her usual self. Do you think she learned anything about losing her temper? I seriously doubt it.
All she may have learned is that when you go to the ER, you then go to McDonalds and get a LPS giraffe to take home with you! Photo courtesy of Sarah.

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The Tale of Flippy McBedHog

I've been getting a late night visitor. I'm not sure what it is about children and the magical age of not-quite 3, but it seems that THAT is the age when the night time wandering happens. I'm grateful we haven't had a repeat of The Apple Juice Story with anyone (clearly William is in a league of his own) but it seems that it's now Jason's turn to come hunting me down in the middle of the night. Because, and I quote, 'he just wants to sleep with me'.

I explain to him every night at bedtime that he sleeps in his bed and I sleep in mine, and every night he asks me to sleep in his bed. And recently, he's been waking up and crawling in with us sometime in the middle of the night. Which maybe I wouldn't mind so much if he didn't toss and turn and twist and push. But really? I get 6 hours pretty regularly and it's just not enough as it is, and to have to cart him back to bed and then try to wait him out & make sure he stays there is asking a lot.

Last night I made the effort & tucked him back in, only to have him back at my side 20 minutes later - at which point I gave up and just crawled into his bunk with him (thankfully, it's a full and not a twin so there was plenty of room). Matt came in and kissed me goodbye at 5:45, and I swear not 10 minutes later Sarah was up and crying, because she'd looked for me in my room & didn't find me there. So off we trundled back to my bed for whatever shut-eye we could manage for a few minutes. Until the alarm went off at 6:15 :(