Came home, 4-year-old was crying. To make a long story short, ended up with three stitches.
The End.
The story was too short? Okay, the long version...
I had been sick. So I went only one place, to donate some toys, and planned to come home and take a nap. (Hey, I was still sick. Normally I can donate toys AND eat lunch before I need a nap). Anyway, so I came home, thinking fondly of the couch and a soft blanket, with the cat sleeping on me and the dog standing guard beside me.
Well, okay, the cat would have been trying to get me up to feed her early, and the dog would have been trying to get the cat. So I probably wouldn't have had a good nap anyway. Or, at least, I would have just been hiding under the blanket while the animals fought above me (imagine the cat and dog from Tom and Jerry. Um, no... no mice. I know, it's not a perfect example. It's just an image. Come on people, Focus).
What was I talking about? Stitches. Gotcha.
So I come in the house, thinking about wonderful sleep (even if it was only a pipe dream), when I'm greeted with crying down the hall. All I can think is, "now what?" My eight-year-old comes around the corner, self-righteously announcing, "See, told you you shouldn't do it." And, again, all I can think is "now what?" Then my wife comes around the corner, puts my bleeding daughter into my arms, says, "Get in the car, we're going to the hospital," and disappears to take the eight-year-old over to the neighbors.
Now, with the first kid, I used to panic. The first time my first-born had a cold (as an infant), I hurried him to the doctor. The bemused doctor looked at me and said, "This is your first, isn't it?" So, okay, I've calmed a bit since then. So, while the 4-year-old cried, I calmly gathered up what I needed, hooked her into the carseat, and had the car running, ready to go, before my wife made it back from the neighbors. Panic is, after all, inefficient.
Okay. Maybe I panicked a little. Just a little. She is my little girl, after all.
I waited until we were driving before I found out what had happened. Sometimes, it's better to get moving than to stop and ask questions. She had been showing her brother that she could balance on a dining room chair (I still don't know if she was balancing the chair on two chair legs, or transferring from one chair to another. It's a little difficult to understand a crying four-year-old). She slipped and fell face first onto the other chair, hitting her chin.
So, we now have had our first stitches. Somehow, with all the falling, with all the leaping with light sabres, with chasing Pokemon through the backyard and wrestling all his friends, my eight-year-old has managed to avoid stitches. With how active they are, and how often they push their own limits, I'm amazed there have been no broken bones and, now, only three stitches.
Think I'd like to keep it that way.
Nothing is worse than having a hurt kid. And only the kid get's the lollipop. It's the parent's who need it. Adrenaline wears off and you get shaky. No nap after that.
I love my kids. But I really miss having naps.
And a savings account. I miss that too.
I need some sleep.
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