Starting off the New Year

What a morning! It started off normally, except that we had to take two cars to church as my husband had to leave right after Mass to get to the airport. (His grandfather passed away and the funeral is tomorrow.) We are all sitting quietly listening to the homily (as quietly as you can when you're two!) when Mr. C tried to slide off the pew. I guess is was slippier (that's a word!) than he thought as he went crashing face first into the back of the pew in front of us. He clocked his cheek on the "hymnal holder". I could tell before I even picked him up that it was going to leave a mark. And he started crying instantly. When I turned him around, I saw the blood. Luckily, I'm not easily scared as I know facial injuries can bleed profusely. I used some tissues from my purse (I actually had some!!) and cleaned him up a little. One look at the wound and I knew we were going to need stitches.

I grabbed him up and headed out of church. My husband followed with our stuff. The other kids stayed behind with my parents and my aunt and uncle (I'm so lucky to have all that help every Sunday!) and Mr. J was home with his nurse. Back in the vestibule, I sat down and applied pressure while we discussed what to do. Luckily, I was able to stop the bleeding so I felt comfortable taking him to the ER alone. We went out to the van and transferred four booster seats to my husband's car so that he could put them in my parents' car after services and I headed off with Mr. C.

While I was filling out paper work, Mr. C gladly went off with an aide to get his vitals: he stood on the scale like a big boy, got his temperature taken by mouth like a big boy, and held his hand still like a big boy while the pulse ox probe determined his heart rate and oxygenation. He happily chatted with the nurse while she asked how it happened. Aside from the gash on his cheek, you'd never know he'd been injured!



While waiting for the doctor, Mr. C sat happily watching cartoons and eating cookies.

Soon, the nurse came in to put numbing medication on the wound. He laid still while she dripped the medicine in the wound and continued to be cooperative as she put a cotton ball soaked in the medicine on his cheek and secured it with tagaderm. He then just laid on the bed peacefully watching cartoons while the medicine did it's thing.



When it came time to papoose him, he was again so cooperative! The aide had me remove his shirt as they "can get overheated especially when they start screaming". She said it like it was going to happen. I leaned down and told Mr. C that he would be a good boy. I got the feeling that she was rolling her eyes! He let the aide pin his arms back with a pillow case and never protested as she strapped him on the board. As the doctor did his thing, he never cried and held his head so still! Everyone was so impressed with him! The aide told me she wished every child would behave so well and gave Mr. C stickers, crayons, and a coloring book. :)

He ended up with two stitches beneath the surface and five on top. Seven stitches!



We picked up a milkshake on the way over to my parents' house to get his siblings. When we got to my parents' house, we were surprised with brunch: bacon, eggs, grapefruit, and a crumpet for me and pancakes for Mr. C. Too cool. He's been acting totally normal and the wound doesn't seem to bother him. What a trooper!

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Here's what I was going to post today...

New Year's Day, the whole family went to my parents' house for dinner. My mom had saved her noisemakers from the night before and let the kids play with them after dinner. Mr. J thought they were hilarious! He was laughing so hard that he kept blowing the cap right off his trach! We finally had to get the kids to stop using them so Mr. J could catch his breathe. I caught some of it on video (sorry for the poor lighting) but as he wouldn't keep the cap on you can't hear his sweet voice but you can definitely see how much the noise tickled him.