August 11, 2008

Vacation, ER visits, and Super-glue

One would think that with moving, living with my parents for three months, and starting a new job, I’d have reached my stress quota. Not quite.

We arrived at our hotel for six days at the beach yesterday. We were only here about five minutes when I heard Big I say to Lil C, "let’s go jump on the beds." They were understandably excited. After driving through pouring rain, hail and high winds bad enough to make us pull off the road several times and drive about 20 mph on the turnpike, we had finally arrived. The ride was much longer than usual, and the girls were wound up after being released from the car.

After I heard Big I’s idea, I sternly told them both not to jump on the beds and to please calm down. I was busy unpacking the kitchen stuff when I heard a horrific cry. The girls had listened about the bed jumping, but they hadn’t quite grasped the whole calming down part.

You should know that Lil C can not walk and is only programmed to run everywhere she goes. The hotel suite was no different. While running in the room, she tripped as she was coming around the corner of the bed and flew face first right into the very sharp and pointy nightstand.

I picked her up and put her on the bed scanning her face for injures, as I so often have to do. It took only a few seconds before a streak of blood appeared down her face. She had sliced her face open directly beside her right eye. The tears were mixing with blood and making it seem even worse.

It wasn’t good though. As I dabbed at the cut, I realized that she had really sliced herself open. The skin was separated enough to make me nauseated. I’ve done fine with all their injuries up to this point, but this one was different.

We butterflied it shut with our first aid kid and went to the grocery store, with Mr. BBM insisting it was o.k. and not needing of a visit to the ER. While at the grocery store though, the blood was oozing out of the bandage and I was worried (the understatement of the year).

Within the hour we were arriving at the ER for what would be a long night. While we waited for the doctor, Lil C entertained the entire ER by singing her rendition of "Kung Fu Fighting." She looks like she was "kung fu fighting" so at least she had an appropriate theme song. We left the ER this morning around 12:45 a.m. after Lil C’s cut was literally super-glued shut (Thankfully the cut was straight and not long enough to require stitches).

She’s not allowed to swim or get it wet for at least 24 hours. We’ve obviously started our beach vacation off on the right foot. We may have gotten a year of reprieve, but it appears that the BBM family vacation ER curse has struck again.