Friday, February 20, 2015

A Most Memorable Date

We've all had those dates, right? The date that we anticipated for a week, tell all our friends about, and count down the hours until he arrives?

Eve had that date yesterday.

Brad takes each of the kids on a date about once a month, but no one loves them as much as Evie. She left with big dreams for the evening--a quick bite to eat at her favorite restaurant (for a Happy Meal. She is five.), a stop at the used bookstore, and finished off with an ice cream cone--chocolatey and swirly and melty and sweet. That ice cream cone was licking her face and fingers by the time I got her in the shower. She splashed and scrubbed as I headed down the hall to finish some ironing.

Then I heard it. The scream.

You know the one.

The one where you know something really bad happened.  The one where siblings drop what they're doing and yell, "GET MOM! QUICK!"

That's the scream I heard.

When I rushed around the bathroom corner, I found a wet blond head sticking out of one of my good towels. Why was she using a good towel? She knows better.

Blood mixing with bath water was running down her neck. Where was the injury? She couldn't tell me, not in her hysterical post-shower drippiness.

There it was.

On her chin.

After mopping up the blood and water, I realized it needed stitches. And she was demanding something else.

Her daddy.

Brad was gone, but as soon as he heard of the emergency, he changed his plans, picked Micah and his friends up from basketball practice, burst through the front door Superman-style, scooped up his pajama-ed and dry baby girl, hustled down the street to our neighbor's house. Why the neighbor? He's a doctor and had offered to stitch her up at his office.

This is the image Brad sent me.
Bath hair that never got combed then dried. A small drop of blood on her clean pajamas.

He said she didn't like the numbing shot too much, but once it was numb, she fell asleep for the seven baby stitches Dr. P placed on my baby's face.

Eve had to tell me all about it when she got home--how the bandaid is "water-prooth" so that she can get in the bath and not get her stitches wet. How she cried and had to keep her arms in a blanket "so they wouldn't get cold" (smack the dr. as he worked).

Most importantly, she had to remind me that she hadn't read her new book to me yet, and even though it was 9:45 pm, she needed to read before bed.

I expected her to wake up cranky and unwilling to get ready for school, but she was fine. She had to learn how to eat with a bandage on her chin, and she was a little worried that her classmates might make fun of her. I asked her if they'd made fun of her friend when she broke her arm and had to wear a pink cast for a month. When she realized she wouldn't be teased, she was all smiles and ready to show off her injury at school.
Off she went.

Most of my kids have split their chins or their foreheads or their knees or their somethings open at some point.

Add another one to the record books.

3 comments:

  1. Yes - definitely memorable! What a little trooper she is!

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  2. Despite three rather accident prone boys, we have yet to have stitches in our house. There, I've just gone and jinxed myself.

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