The First ER Visit or, Perfection is overrated

There was a point on Sunday when I thought, I have to write a blog post, because we are really having a pretty perfect day. But when the day ends at the ER, well, it's clear you shouldn't count any proverbial good days until all eyes are firmly shut in blissful slumber, now should you?

So, let's recap the good parts - brunch at Louisiana Kitchen with our now West Coast friend, Murph. Delish, as always, even though small children don't eat brunch. They eat breakfast, then they eat lunch, so why are we expecting them to sit quietly and eat again at the weird hour of 11 am? Elizabeth ate nothing but colored, whereas Andrew just attempted to reasonably quietly wreak havoc. Then we went home and attempted to put Andrew down for a nap. Which he refused. In no uncertain terms.

Hmm, you must be thinking, this doesn't exactly sound like a great day. But then we went to DAR Constitution Hall, for the US Air Force Band's free concert series, with special guests from So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars. Awesome! But also kinda weird - nothing like seeing a woman in full dress blues belting out Katy Perry's Firework and Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA, followed by another woman knock Lionel Ritchie's All Night Long, followed by another guy in dress blues belt the hell out of a number of songs. And then the band took backstage and the dancers performed - Benjie, Sabra, and someone else from SYTYCD were great. E&A were spellbound. But then A's mesmerized look faded into a thousand-mile stare before he nodded into a nap (with pounding pop/rock music and a couple of thousand cheering fans as his white noise background, apparently). It was a lot of fun. (We went last year when the featured guest was Melinda Doolittle, a past American Idol contestant. In two weeks, there's another concert featuring country/rock group Lonestar, which we will skip.) But really, a holdiay weekend, a fun concert, all for free? It doesn't get much better.

To cap off the night we walked to dinner in the neighborhood with friends. After dinner, just as it was beginning to spit rain/sleet, we let the 5 kids play around the planting beds outside the restaurant, running around and around on the ledge. And just as we turned to leave, 4 of the kids came running back to us, but Elizabeth popped up from the other side with a loud cry and blood running down her face. Rich ran and grabbed her, the other mom and I grabbed for the baby wipes, and the other dad corralled the 4 kids. I wiped off most of the blood and we saw the gash on her forehead. Other mom immediately said, you need to go to the hospital, that's too deep, and probably needs stitches. So we made a plan, after we scouted the area and decided (the giant blood drops were a clue) Elizabeth had hit her head on one of the small uplights focused on the trees - raised, rounded lights, with curved edges but not sharp edges. Other family went home and looked up the hours of the local emergent care center. Rich put E in A's stroller and set off at a high speed for home and the car to take E, and I trailed after with a slower, now-walking A. By the time I got home, other family let me know the center was closed, so Rich would have to go to a hospital, so I called and let him know, then tried to focus on getting Andrew in bed. He was a little befuddled: where dit-da [sister]? Where Daddy? But he cooperated nicely and then I just had to wait.

Two hours later, E came bursting home. Turns out the ER was "awesome" but a little boring. When they walked in they were processed in right away and the triage nurse said, good thing you came in, that's going to need some attention. After processing and triage, they had to wait about an hour in the back before being seen. The cleaning of the wound was the only stressful part, and the doctor decided it was small enough it could be closed with glue, no stitches needed, though there will probably be a scar. Elizabeth was particularly impressed with the stacks of "folded napkins" (gauze bandages) and liked having one taped to her head.

Yesterday, we took off the gauze. Of course the tape was stuck to a little bit of hair, and of course the gauze was stuck in the dermabond. I was able to get the tape unstuck, but Elizabeth was squirming too much for me to get at the gauze. She told us she wanted to look at it and walked by herself into the hall to stand at the mirror, and came back a minute later and told us she pulled the gauze off herself. That's my girl.
It's less than an inch long, really. The glue didn't really close it up, so I think there will be a scar, but in a few days, when the glue rubs off, we'll start applying Vitamin E oil.

For our first ER experience, it wasn't all that bad. I can hope it's our last ER experience, I don't know if we'll be that lucky!