As we do every year at the end of July, we packed up the kittens for a fun summer night at Festa Italiana. It was a great, warm night and we met K&K there to hang out, watch the performances, and of course stuff ourselves silly.
We started off essentially ordering one of everything. So that was fun! Luke ate basically nothing - he was too busy staring at the Sky Glider and demanding to go on the "whee fun". So Luke went with Matt and G chose to go with Karl. Whee fun, indeed!
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| taking off with grandpa |
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| wave at mommy while she has a stroke |
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| oh sweet lord, there goes my baby up in the air |
After everyone landed safely we watched some performances and the kids ran us ragged on the giant playground. They were sweaty and gross so we let them dip their toes into the water at the splash pad. Except 'dip' quickly deteriorated to 'drench'. I didn't have a change of clothes for G so I basically just wrung her out as much as I could. But I did have a onesie for Luke - thinking I'm quite clever - so I got him out of his wet duds and into a dry diaper and dry shirt.
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| i'm just going to get my feet wet, mom |
This is where things get fuzzy. I don't know if he stepped off the back of the bench we were on, or tripped, or what, but in the two seconds I had my back to him the little lad went forehead-first into a giant curb. I can still hear the sound in my head and I knew, I just KNEW instantly without even seeing it that he would need stitches.
I scooped him up and tried to apply pressure as fast as I could. Those melon wounds like to bleed so I got sprayed while the poor dude was screaming hysterically (obviously). There were some really kind strangers who stopped by to give us water and ice, and one woman who was a pediatric nurse practitioner took a look too. I said, "don't worry, we're going straight to Children's" to which she replied, "yeah, but don't feel bad. I have a 2 year old with a broken arm." Sure enough in the stroller was this little dude with his arm all wrapped up.
Anyway the EMT people at the grounds came over and took a report. The guy was kind of a di*k (when I said L is allergic to peanuts he replied, "whoa, that sucks. You don't outgrow that one." ::gave him my best fish eye::). We managed to calm Luke down enough to head to the car. Fortunately K&K were able to take G home - it was a guaranteed long night.
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| triage at children's. obviously well enough to have his pic taken |
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| post-triage waiting for a room to open up. matt had to stop him from climbing forehead-first on the chairs |
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| annnnnnnnnnnnnnd running |
The part that I was most nervous about was the lidocaine. I remember Grant being maybe 7 or 8 years old and he had to get stitches. He HOWLED while I stood outside the ER just terrified for him. I realize now it was probably during the lidocaine. So I had visions of having to get several adults involved to hold Lukie down when lo and behold, modern medicine came to our rescue and we got the lidocaine
GEL. Oh happy day! The only bad part was that it needed to sit for about 25 minutes and keeping this dude from touching it for that length of time took every trick in the diaper bag.
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| fortunately there was some bee ball on - goo boo-ers - so that kept his attention for a good 2 minutes |
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| daddy plays fetch with the slinky. i'm telling you, we were getting desperate |
Well all hail the gel, because it worked like a charm and he sat as still as could be for the three stitches. Plus we got not just a popsicle but a
banana popsicle, which obvs made everything better.
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| notice his hand shoving my arm forward because i wasn't getting him his treat fast enough |
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| at home the next day - quite the goose egg |
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| little man is all about mickey right now so 'mee-mouse' band aids were in order |
Of course the real tragedy of the evening was that Matt did not get a cannoli. But now he and his son have matching perma-dents in their foreheads. Dear Children's Hospital: you're welcome.
