Moi's permanant souvenier from the Driftwood...

The day after

So Friday night, the last night of our vacation, we pretty much just chilled out. Moi got up pretty early that morning and was already tired around 7 pm, and Chris and I were looking forward to putting her to bed around 8 and actually sitting down to watch a movie and chill out together (seems like that hadn't happened all week). About 7 pm, I was putting away some dishes in the kitchen and over the kitchen island, I looked over and saw Moi sitting on the coffee try to put her juice cup on the coffee table and she misjudged how far away it was and fell completely forward onto her forehead. I saw her head snap backwards and the cry she let out, I knew it was going to be bad. I ran over there and yelled for Chris, who was in the other room. I saw the deep deep cut and could tell right away it was too deep and wide to just be taken care of by a band aid. I told Chris "we need to go to the hospital" (the last words any parent ever wants to say, but it's the first time I've said it in 3 years). I shouldn't have said that though, b/c Moi knows what the hospital is. We've talked about the hospital when we talk about when she came out of my belly and how I will go there when the new baby comes. She got really hysterical and just kept saying "I don't need to go to the hospital, I'm not a baby!" I didn't know how to calm her down so I lied and said we were going to the park. I know, bad, but it was the only way I could get her to stop thrashing around hysterically. She probably didn't really believe me, but she did calm down. She wouldn't let me put a band aid on her, which I actually did have access to, so we just had to leave the wound exposed. I carried her all the way to the car and sat next to her as Chris drove to the hospital, which he fortunately knew where it was. It was scary b/c I was worried about concussion as much as anything b/c I saw how hard she fell, and she kept trying to fall asleep in the car. We made it to the ER, Chris dropped me off and I carried her in. The security people were very rude to me b/c apparently I didn't go to the right desk and didn't understand where they wanted me to go. We got checked in and waited for triage. She was crying and crying and also trying to fall asleep. I asked how far we were on the triage list and we were 7th. I kept walking her around right by the triage nurse and I think they bumped us up, b/c it seemed like we went 2nd or 3rd. Fortunately, they had a separate kids trauma area and she was the only one there, so it was only about 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes until she was in her own room. She calmed down in the room. I knew she was going to need stitches and told her about how cousin Maren hurt her head and needed stitches, that seemed to help calm her as well. She was so tired by the time the nurse and PA came in. They said she would need to be papoosed, fortunately she likes to play "baby burrito" at home when she's tired, and that's basically what this is. They told us how really really bad the numbing shots hurt and how she would be crying and probably hysterical, as most kids are. However, she actually fell asleep once in the baby burrito, and we gave her her pacifier, so that helped. So glad she still has her pacifier for times like this! She fell asleep as they were giving her the shots. That worried me that that would be bad for head trauma, but they said it was fine. They gave her about 10 shots around the wound- ouch- and put in 4 stitches. This is gross, but I could see a pretty big hole/puncture wound in the middle of the wound. Gross gross gross. I don't know how that happened b/c she didn't hit the corner. The PA said the skin there is just really thin. After the procedure she was downright giddy. I asked if they would give her a dose of pain medicine, since all we had was Motrin at the hotel and that's a blood thinner. They gave said they'd give her some Tylenol and as we were waiting for it and we were trying to guess what color it would be and she was laughing like hysterically about every color I suggested. If I didn't know better, I'd swear they'd given her some sort of weird drugs. Maybe she was just happy to finally be feeling better since she had the numbing shots. Fortunately, the hospital waiting area had ring pops and juice boxes, so I had Chris get some when we were waiting. She didn't want them at the time but wanted the ring sucker right away once she got stitched up. She used the juice to dilute the Tylenol and drank it all, so that was good. She seemed fine back at the hotel. We were out of there by about 9, so it could have been much worse. I keep having flashbacks of the incident however since I saw it and keep imagining all the worse things that could have or could happen now, but I guess that's a mom's job, to worry about those sort of things. The next day she kept saying "I'm a boo boo girl!" and "Remember I fell off the couch onto the coffee table? I don't want to do THAT again".

P.S. Sorry to Patty and Aunt Emily whose clothes I happened to be wearing that night, as they are now blood stained.... I'll replace them for you!