Nothing Says "Romance" Like a Trip to the ER

Saturday morning started with an early wake-up call. Ella was up at 5, and Sadie was up not long after. But before I could even think about being crabby about being up that early, Sadie grinned at me from her crib and said, "I love you very, very much." Aw.

So we went through our usual Saturday morning routine--my long run for the week (seven miles), the chaos of swimming lessons (last week for this, thank goodness!!), lunch, naps, then a trip to the local pool. We got home in the late afternoon and rushed to get ready since my mom was coming over to watch the girls. Dean and I had plans to go out for dinner and then to a movie. Right.

The girls were in our room jumping on the bed. I had been in there with them but walked out to finish getting ready. As I did so, I actually thought "I probably shouldn't leave them alone like this." Bingo. Five minutes later, I hear a thud and the sound of Sadie screaming.

Now, I'm embarrassed to admit that Sadie has actually fallen off the bed in some fashion about four or five times, beginning at the age of six months. That's just Sadie. She's not clumsy by any means. She's just...active. This time, though, both girls placed the blame squarely on Ella pushing Sadie. Ella went to time out, while I tried to calm Sadie down. As I did so, I felt what I thought were her tears dripping onto my arm. A few minutes later, I realized she was actually bleeding heavily.

When you become a parent, you always wonder how you'll handle the first serious injury. I have to say, Dean and I passed with flying colors, as we managed to keep our cool (externally, at least) while trying to figure out where the heck she was bleeding from. Finally, we located a one-inch gash on her head. It quickly stopped bleeding, but it was pretty ugly-looking. I called the pediatrician's office ($25 fee for paging the doctor on call after hours) to see what we should do.

As we suspected, this warranted a trip to the ER. Since my mom was on her way over to babysit anyway, we waited for her and fed the girls dinner. Then we left Ella with my mom and headed to the hospital.

The triage nurse put some numbing cream on Sadie's head and sent us to urgent care since the ER was backed up. We only waited there for about 20 minutes before being called back. Sadie, at this point, is fine. She's having a gay old time climbing all over the furniture and checking out the fish.

She did amazingly well while they cleaned out her wound and even handled the first four staples without a whimper. Then she said, "That really hurts!" and started crying a bit. Thankfully, by that point we were all done. Sadie has six staples in all.

The doctor and nurse were awed by Sadie. They told me they've had eight-year-old kids that didn't do as well. The doctor actually told me that God has big plans for Sadie. She speculated that with her cool, calm demenor she might be a neurologist or something some day.

Sadie received some stickers and a popsicle for her trouble, and everything was right with her world.

Meanwhile, Ella was at home with my mom feeling pretty terrible. I'm still not sure whether she deliberately pushed Sadie or whether the pushing was incidental to Ella's jumping. I'm actually guessing the latter. Ella told my mom she was worried we "wouldn't like her anymore." Poor baby. When the girls got up Sunday morning (5:00 again!), Ella patted Sadie's face and head and apologized. It was very sweet. Then she decided she would make Sadie a "sorry" card, so they were off (at 5 in the morning!) to do that.

Of course, it was only an hour or so before Ella was pushing her sister again. Sigh.

Anyhow, long story short, Sadie is fine. She has complained a few times about her head, but motrin seems to take care of that. Meanwhile, *I* am a nervous wreck. Not to be overdramatic or anything, but I think it might take me a while to get over this. Now everytime I see her climbing or being her usual wild monkey self, my heart stops. Logically, I knew before this happened that Sadie was breakable. This wasn't even our first trip to the ER (we took Ella at 14 months for a dislocated elbow). But it has somehow left a scar on me. I'm not sure I can explain it. I think--maybe--if you are a parent, you might understand.

A few photos. There were supposed to be four here, but two disappeared (##$^$^$%^$ Blogger!!). The second shot shows Sadie's staples. My poor, broken baby. [Actually, now I only see one photo. I don't know what's going on....]