battle scars

we gave sebastien a set of three whittling knives for christmas this year. can you guess what i am going to write next? tonight he cut his finger. he came upstairs crying, holding his hand out, staring at the blood dripping from the laceration to the floor. he was horrified by the red oozing stuff. i had him cradle the left bleeding hand with the right to keep the floor a bit cleaner and walked him upstairs to the bathroom. i ran it under some cold water, but it was bleeding so much and hurt seb a lot, so i stopped to wrap it and hold it tight to slow the bleeding down. so we sat in the bathroom on the closed toilet for a while discussing our options.
i thought that if the bleeding didn’t slow down much that we should go to urgent care just across the river. seb didn’t want that. he did not want stitches. i said we could just go to get it checked out and that maybe the wound would just need a special bandaid or some skin glue. i reminded him of his hernia surgery when he was six. the docs basically glued him back together. this eased his mind somewhat, though he did keep coming up with plans that would get him out of being sewed up. he really wanted me to use duct tape. nah, i said, lets go see what they say over at the urgent care.
tonight was not an ideal night to have to do this, get in the car and drive somewhere. three inches of snow were on the ground and more was falling. not fast, but falling nonetheless. for some reason, which seb and i discussed for a time, the plows had not been around our area, nor any salt trucks. seb wondered if we could call the snow plow place and have them come and do it. if only it were so simple. the van is cumbersome in the snow. thankfully, there weren’t many other people out, so i did not feel pressure to maintain the speed limit. we eventually made it to the urgent care, and all the lights were off.
closed!? i was in the process of turning around in a parking lot, and seb was murmuring something  behind me that i was ignoring, trying to think of what to do. <em>go to childrens hosptial? go home and have him bleed all night?</em> neither of these seemed like good plans to me. i got my phone out to call brian as i sat in the driveway out of the parking lot where i had turned around when seb’s voice finally got through to me.
“mommy, the med express right there is open.”
“but the lights are off. i guess we can go check though.” i was fixated on the dark urgent care down the road a bit and began to pull the van out of the parking lot to drive there.
“no, mommy. not the urgent care. the med express. it’s right behind us.”
oh.
to make a long story short. i had been sitting in that med express parking lot the whole time, not noticing. i am glad seb had his brain turned on and saw it. so we went inside, and within minutes seb’s finger had been repaired with 3 stitches. he didn’t even whimper. not a peep. he was very brave. in fact, had he pitched a fit, the doc probably would have stopped at 2 stitches.
“since he is doing so well, we will give him one more.”
okay then!!
on the way home, seb admitted that he was kind of proud that he had stitches and couldn’t wait to tell everyone about them. and i thought to myself, <em>well, who doesn’t like a battle scar and a fun story to share every once in a while?</em> i know i do…

we gave sebastien a set of three whittling knives for christmas this year. can you guess what i am going to write next? tonight he cut his finger.

he came upstairs crying bordering on hysteria, holding his hand out, staring at the blood dripping from the laceration to the floor. he was horrified by the red oozing stuff. i had him cradle the left bleeding hand with the right to keep the floor a bit cleaner and walked him upstairs to the bathroom. i ran it under some cold water, but it was bleeding so much and hurt seb a lot, so i stopped to wrap it and hold it tight to slow the bleeding down. so we sat in the bathroom on the closed toilet for a while discussing our options.

i thought that if the bleeding didn’t slow down much that we should go to urgent care just across the river. seb didn’t want that. he did not want stitches. i said we could just go to get it checked out and that maybe the wound would just need a special bandaid or some skin glue. i reminded him of his hernia surgery when he was six. the docs basically glued him back together. this eased his mind somewhat, though he did keep coming up with plans that would get him out of being sewed up. he really wanted me to use duct tape.

“nah,” i said, “let’s go see what they say over at the urgent care.”

tonight was not an ideal night to have to do this, get in the car and drive somewhere. three inches of snow were on the ground and more was falling. not fast, but falling nonetheless. for some reason, which seb and i discussed for a time, the plows had not been around our area, nor any salt trucks. seb wondered if we could call the snow plow place and have them come and do it. if only it were so simple. the van is cumbersome in the snow. thankfully, there weren’t many other people out, so i did not feel pressure to maintain the speed limit. we eventually made it to the urgent care, and all the lights were off.

closed!? i was in the process of turning around in a parking lot, and seb was murmuring something  behind me that i was ignoring, trying to think of what to do. go to childrens hosptial? go home and have him bleed all night? neither of these seemed like good plans to me. i got my phone out to call brian as i sat in the driveway out of the parking lot where i had turned around when seb’s voice finally got through to me.

“mommy, the med express right there is open.”

“but the lights are off. i guess we can go check though.” i was fixated on the dark urgent care down the road a bit and began to pull the van out of the parking lot to drive there.

“no, mommy. not the urgent care. the med express. it’s right behind us.”

oh.

to make a long story short. i had been sitting in that med express parking lot the whole time, not noticing. i am glad seb had his brain turned on and saw it. so we went inside, and within minutes seb’s finger had been repaired with 3 stitches. he didn’t even whimper. his big hazel eyes blinked out of his pale face, but not a peep escaped his lips. he was very brave. in fact, had he pitched a fit, the doc probably would have stopped at 2 stitches.

“since he is doing so well, we will give him one more.”

okay then!!

on the way home, seb admitted that he was kind of proud that he had stitches and couldn’t wait to tell everyone about them. and i thought to myself, well, who doesn’t like a battle scar and a fun story to share every once in a while? i know i do…