Luke's First Injury



Luke's first injury

 Given his fall down the stairs, his love for climbing, his new affinity for jumping on the furniture, and his fierce independence, I've already started preparing myself for the idea that Luke will be our kid that breaks limbs and needs stitches. There are emergency room trips in his future. I know it in my bones.

This morning, he got his first official injury, meaning, one that left a mark.

 Every morning when we leave the house, he walks across the porch and down the stairs by himself. He's like a horse at the starting gate, bursting out of the front door when I open it. He stops along the way to greet all of the statue animals, and by the time I've put the bags in the car, he's coming down the stairs. He is very careful, coming down sideways so he can hang on to the railing with both hands. I'm usually there to grab him at the bottom so I can put him in his carseat.

This morning, just as I turned around to get him from the steps, I saw him fall from the bottom step onto the driveway. On his face. He was wearing pants today, and I think his foot got caught in his pants leg, tripping him up. I knew from the landing that it hurt, and then he started to cry. I scooped him up and got a close enough look to know there was blood, so we headed back into the house to clean it up.

He was crying hard, so I sat on the toilet and nursed him while I wiped his face with a warm rag to clean off the dirt and blood. That calmed him down enough that he tried to get out of my lap as I put Neosporin on the scrapes. By the time we headed back out to the car, he was well enough to slide down my leg and toddle across the porch and down the steps all by himself.

He has a scrape next to his eyebrow, under his eye, and on the corner of his nose. I can't tell yet if it's going to be a nasty bruise, but it already looks pretty pitiful - especially with those sad eyes and that puffed out lip. I'm pretty sure he's going to work this for all it's worth.

Friday, Bloody Friday

If Ella is a test of my patience, Luke is a test of my nerves. And, at this rate, I’m going to have nerves of steel (or maybe none at all?).

Less than an hour after my arrival at work this morning, I got this phone call.

Ring-Ring..
Me: Hello?
Grandmother: (baby screaming in the background) We’ve had an accident. There’s blood.
Me: What happened?
Grandmother: (over screaming baby) I don’t know. Can I take him to Dr. Downthestreet?
Me: Yes! What happened?!
Grandmother: I’ll call you back from the car. I can’t hear!
Me: (Waiting, waiting, waiting. Debating driving home right now. Waiting some more.)

Five-ish minutes later
Ring-Ring..
Me: Hello?
Grandmother: He fell and hit his mouth on his push toy. He’s bleeding a lot and I can’t get him to open his mouth. I’m going to take him in and see if they’ll look at him and see if I need to take him to the other doctor (the pediatrician) for stitches. I’ll call you back.
Me: Do I need to leave and meet you there?
Grandmother: No, I’ll call you back when I know if we have to go to the other doctor.
Me: (Waiting, waiting, waiting).

Another ten-ish minutes later.
Ring-Ring…
Me: Hello?
Grandmother: Okay, once we finally got his mouth open, we could see two perfect tooth marks in the top of his tongue. He didn’t bite it all the way through.

She took him home to give him Tylenol and put him to nap. Poor kid. He tripped over some other toys he was playing with and fell on the push toy.

Mouth wounds bleed a lot. Like, ridiculous amounts of blood that make it look much worse than it is. I learned this from Georgia’s puppyhood. Knowing this tidbit might be the only reason I kept my head while I sat here waiting.

So yeah, nerves of steel. And gray hair.