Carter's 1st ER trip

We made our first trip to the ER with Carter back in June--I'll never forget the date--it was our anniversary, June 8! It was a pretty uneventful evening, as we'd long put the kids to bed, Chris was downstairs watching TV and I had just gone to bed myself. I had just dosed off when I hear that blood curdling scream, that no mother wants to hear from her child. I bolted out of bed and headed across the house to the stairs. By that time, Chris had already made it to Carter's room (also downstairs), and both Chris & Carter were freaking out. I have to say, my husband is not the coolest of heads in trauma situations. All I could hear him say as I raced down the stairs was, "Mindy, it's bad...it's really bad. There's blood everywhere." Fab. That's just what the 6-year-old needs to hear.

 

After I got both of my boys settled down, I figured out that Carter had rolled off his bed and hit the corner of his eye on the sharp corner of his nightstand, causing a pretty nasty gash. It was shortly after 11pm at this point, and it was bleeding pretty good. I wasn't sure if it needed stitches or not, so I called our friend Melisa, and thankfully, she was still awake, and she ran over to check out Carter's injury. She advised that stitches probably weren't necessary, but they would probably help it to heal nicer if they could stich the gap up. Something I had not thought of, and I was very thankful to have her expertise nearby. So, we called my dad to come over and hang with the little kids, and we headed to the ER with our big boy in his PJs.

Poor kid looks like he's been in a bar fight.

He was so brave throughout the whole ordeal. We ended up being there about an hour, thankfully it wasn't a busy night. The numbing shot was the worse part...it is so hard to subject your child to such pain. :( To make matters worse, the poor guy had just had to have a tooth pulled at the dentist earlier that week (his new tooth had grown over in over half way behind it, and that baby tooth had to go), so he'd already experienced the painful numbing shots in the mouth. He had tears, but they dried quickly, and he was such a trooper for the stitching. 

 Two stitches and ready to head home, just after midnight. Happy anniversary to us! :)

 The swelling had already gone down a lot by the next day. He ended up healing really nicely, although he will probably always have a small scar to remember his first ER trip by. I'm so thankful it was nothing worse.