Stitches are cool, but glory is forever!

This morning was crazy.  Eileen was a hot mess.  She is most mornings, but today she took it to a new level. I hoped it would not be an omen for the day.  Robin and I dropped the kids off at school and headed to Starbucks before baby dance class.  I had a pumpkin spice latte and suddenly everything seemed like it was going to be okay.

After a wonderful dance class, Robin passed out asleep and transferred to the crib.  This allowed me to clean the whole house, including mopping, wash the kids' bedding, make phone calls, send emails, handle other business, and even watch the new episode of SVU.  I wondered how this day could get any better.

Fatal move.  The phone rang.  It was school.  They were calling to tell me to come get Linus.  He had fallen on the playground while playing flyers and cut his chin.  It looked like he might need stitches.  Robin and I headed out the door.  When I arrived, Eileen was sitting up at the front office desk, making Linus a card.  I called the doctor, wondering what I was supposed to do.  Is the possibility of stitches something you bring a kid to the doctor for or is it an ER thing?  It was new parenting territory for me.  After some consulting, they sent me to the ER of my choice.  Linus chose Children's.

It was a good choice.  There is a Starbucks in the ER waiting room and a plethora of movie viewing options in the patient rooms.  This doesn't make having 3 tired kids in a small room by myself easy, just more bearable.  Linus is not an easy patient.  After the decision of stitches, many people were required to hold him down at different points--just me for numbing cream,  3 people for the sedation,  3 people for lidocaine and stitches.  The sedation left Linus awake, but calmed some of his anxiety.  He kicked less, but that didn't stop him from struggling, saying they were killing him, or calling the nurses stupid, begging for help and to be allowed to tell his mama something very important.  In total, Linus received 3 stitches.

The sedation left Linus loopy.  Minutes after the procedure, he asked when he was getting stitches.  He had no recollection of the last several hours.  He didn't remember falling.  In fact he didn't know his own name.  Noah? Fia? Tommy?  He was very cordial (and groggy) offering both Eileen and I tastes of his popsicle. We needed a wheelchair to get him in the car.  Linus passed out during the ride home.

Dave moved a very floppy Linus to the couch.  We let him sleep for a while and woke him to feed him the Happy Meal we promised him and put him to bed.

It's been a long, long, loooonnnng day.  Luckily, I'm pretty sure it's nothing some chocolate and glass of wine can't fix.