Memorable

"I remember you guys!"

Those are not the words you want to hear from the Emergency Room doctor.

Yet, it's exactly what he said as he pulled back the curtain and walked into our room Saturday morning.  

Eli, or the kid who from here on out shall be known as "One Who Raises Insurance Premiums," busted his lip open.  I was sure he needed stitches.  I'd say thank God this happened on my watch instead of say, another squabble with Elena, but I never realized how awful it feels when something happens on your watch.

I was upstairs with him, making beds and throwing laundry together.  I had just taken the sheet off his bed to wash, and he was enthralled with the mattress.  He'd moved it so that it was like a mini-ramp off his toddler bed, and was jumping from the mattress to the floor.  I knew this, and I was fine with it.  I caught him jumping off my bed before (which I was not ok with), so how dangerous could the one foot drop from his toddler bed be?

Dangerous enough, apparently.  I wasn't in his room when it happened, so it is quite possible that he jumped from something a bit higher – his tool bench, perhaps.  I heard a thud (not unusual), silence (not good), a wail (not typical), and then I saw the blood.  Lots and lots of blood.  I whisked him to the bathroom and began trying to figure out what part of his mouth the buckets of blood were coming from.  I wasn't overly concerned at this point, as I've learned that any kind of cut in the mouth bleeds like you've cut an artery.  The teeth were all there and in their proper places, so I moved on.  That's when I saw the gash just under his lip.  I wiped it to get a better look and that's when I went a bit woozy.  It was deep.  It might have been cut all the way through his lip, but I couldn't make myself look.  

Normally, when stuff gets a bit dicey around here, I'm the calm one and Mike is the one who freaks out.  Not so this time.  As I was carrying him downstairs I felt my legs begin to shake like jell-o.  Maybe it was the fear, maybe it was the guilt, but it was messing with me.  Mike was the rational one, wanting to look at Eli a little closer before we took him to the ER.  In my freaked-out, protective-momma-bear state, I would hear none of it.  

And that's how we found ourselves back in the ER, with the same doctor who first examined Eli's broken arm.  Thankfully, the cut did not go all the way through, though he tore up the inside of his mouth quite a bit.  The doctor advised against stitches.  He thought it would heal properly without them, and heal with less scarring.  There was no way we were putting Eli through stitches if it wasn't absolutely necessary.  He got a popsicle instead.

The picture was taken just shortly after we got home from the ER.  I should take a progression of pictures, because he actually looked worse the next day.  He has a nasty fat lip to go along with the cut now.  He's just fine, though.  He's a tough guy.  Me, on the other hand?  I've got a few more gray hairs, for sure.