How long is this going to take?

On the evening of Friday, May 15, 2015,  one of my worst nightmares was partially realized. Our 18 month old son tripped and fell right into the corner of our bed frame (which is oak and comes to a sharp corner - one of the precious few sharp corners in our house). There wasn't a comforter on the bed at the time, so there was nothing to buffer the blow.

I immediately picked him up and rushed into the kitchen to try to get some ice. When I looked down, his blood was on my chest and arm. I looked at him, and it was spilling down his face. I wanted to hug him and cry... but I couldn't. I didn't want him to panic.

Instead, I yelled to his father to bring me some clean, wet rags. I wanted to use one as a cold compress with the ice to hopefully stop the bleeding... and the other to clean my precious boy's face and hopefully help calm him in the process. 

I managed to get him calmed down as I sent his father to get me a band-aid. Making sure not to remove the rag for longer than I had to in order to check on the status... it appeared that, by some miracle, he may have impacted the side more than the actual corner…which spared him a deep gash, instead making a small L shaped cut.

That being said, it still bled. We still needed to get it checked out. So, once everything was under control, and we had someone in control of our older boy, off to the ER we went.

We arrived at about 6:30p.

To wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

All the while, Snow Monkey was giggling, dancing, bumming cookies off of a friend, and just being his normal, happy little self. 

We got into a room at 7:45p. 

The resident came in, then had a staff physician in at 8:00 p. 

They put the numbing gel on his forehead at 8:30.... 

At 9:30 the resident came in with his sewing kit.

There was some debate as to whether they could just glue the cut and go with that, but the staff physician urged them to go ahead and stitch the wound shut and then use glue as it was located on his forehead. 

Two stitches and 4 hours after the initial injury occurred, we were back home.. safe and sound. Snow Monkey had eaten and was on his way to dream land... and I was in for a restless night of checking on my little sweetheart.

Of course, I didn't need to be so diligent, he was perfectly fine... but mommy instinct kicked in and I found myself checking up on him several times.