This Day Had to Come

D2 came into the world with a ride in an ambulance. He has "accident waiting to happen" in big black and blue marks across his forehead. So perhaps the only surprising thing about last night is that it took him sixteen months to take us to the ER with an injury.

The scenario was the same one that happens about once an hour: slip, fall, bang head. Only instead of the relatively forgiving wood floor or door frames he usually encounters, he hit the brick corner of the fireplace. We immediately dropped our so-far fruitless attempts to get the borrowed TV to show the Super Bowl and began working on keeping his head still enough to bandage it. He was not helpful in this endeavor. In fact, he screamed non-stop from the moment it happened until a nurse kindly brought him some applesauce, which allowed us to answer in the negative with complete confidence when asked if he had lost consciousness.

D1 was perfectly calm about the whole thing, once it was explained to her, and went about getting her shoes and coat on to go visit her friends while we were gone. She would be a much easier child to take to the ER, but that is why she is much less likely to go there.

D2 was reasonably happy from snack time through playing with some bowls of water until people actually started working on his head again, whereupon he resumed his former song. Because he was so young, the nurse had me apply the numbing solution to his head. We were struggling to hold him down and put it on, as the nurse had told us to "Hold it there as long as you can."

"How long exactly should we try for?" I asked.

"Fifteen minutes," she said. Fifteen minutes! I was feeling pleased that I had held it on for fifteen seconds. She finally put some tape on it, which allowed us to devote our attention to keeping his hands away.

While a later nurse was washing out his wound (with plain water, no fancy antiseptic stuff), she jerked the syringe too hard sucking in the next batch of water and managed to knock the bowl of water all over the floor and the doctor. He was, fortunately, an exceedingly nice fellow. We opted for glue instead of stitches, thinking it would involve less holding him down. They were going to swaddle him for the actual stitching, but they couldn't find the necessary contraption, so we had to once again resort to our finely-honed Toddler Restraint skills.

Meanwhile DOB's family, who were coming over to watch the Super Bowl, arrived, let themselves in, got the TV working, set out food, and fetched D1. DOB did get to watch most of the second half after we got back. Not that he was highly concerned about it at that point, but still, he was glad to see the Colts win.

D2 continued in unabated misery until we put him to bed, but he slept soundly last night and has been quite chipper this morning, except for a cough not helped by the running around in the cold last night. So far he hasn't re-bumped his head, which is amazing, considering how many times he's fallen down, once about five inches from his scene of triumph last night.

The nurses said they hoped not to see us again too soon, but they didn't sound too confident.