jennanddave.com

On Saturday afternoon, around 4PM, the time of day when everyone's a little punchy from boredom or is in desperate need of a nap, Henry ran down our back hallway, tripped on our runner, and smashed his forehead on the door that leads down to our garage. He immediately started wailing and crying. Dave was outside taking down Christmas lights at the time and instantly knew from the sound of Henry's hysterics that we would be heading to the ER. When he came in, I was still trying to figure out what had happened. I was hugging Henry, who had his hand over part of his forehead. He told me he ran into the door. I figured a bruise would be about the extent of it until he took his hand down from his face and I saw the blood. Then I saw the wound. That's when I knew he'd be in for at least a few stitches. Dave hustled the kids into the car while I ran around the house stocking up on baby toys and turning off space heaters and generally trying to be organized and thoughtful while in actuality being pretty much neither. When I got into the car, Henry said from the back seat "Guess what happened to me on the way to the car?" "What?" "I fell down and hurt my butt!!!" *giggle* *grin*

Once we got on the road Dave wanted to know who wanted to stop at Burger King for an ICEE. I was all about getting to the hospital asap, but then Dave, who's old hat at this by now, said we'd have a long wait anyway, we might as well be sipping ICEE's while we were there. So we stopped and got one for me and one for Henry. We registered at the front desk of ER then headed for the kid's play area. Henry showed me around. Then we were called back to the intake office where a nurse asked Henry all sorts of questions about what happened. During a lull in the conversation, Henry leaned forward and said "Hey! Hey, Doctor? Guess what happened to me on the way to the car?" "What?" "I fell down and hurt my butt!!!" *grin* *giggle*

We headed back to the play area, picked out a few books, had some Cheetos, finished our ICEE's, then were shown into an exam room. Dave found some SpongeBob and all was good with the world. The Doctor came in, took a look at his wound, and determined he'd probably need two stitches. During a lull in the conversation, Henry turned to her and said "Hey! Hey, Doctor? Guess what happened to me on the way to the car?" "What?" "I fell down and hurt my butt!!!" *grin* *giggle*

The doctor put some numbing gel on for about fifteen minutes, then came back and injected a more potent numbing agent directly into the wound. Henry was crawling up the bed while she was doing that, mostly, we think, because it felt weird as opposed to it actually hurting. It took some coaxing to get him to lay back down, but he did. He focused on SpongeBob while the Doctor did her best to make sure she kept her needle and thread out of his line of sight while she was sewing his stitches. When she was done, he had no idea what had happened. While we were waiting for discharge papers we told him we'd take him anywhere he wanted to go for dinner. He chose a local BBQ joint. On the walk back to the car, he started running. I told him not to because we didn't want to have to take him back inside for more stitches. He stopped, whipped around, and said "Stitches?" I told him never mind, and off we went to dinner.

Henry really pulls it together during times of high stress. It's absolutely amazing. He handles these things better than I do.