A trip to the park...

in the car with bandaid bear
















love from her friends




















a much-needed nap





...that ended abruptly, within 5 minutes of arriving, when the Girl was pushed from behind on the platform before the slide and fell splitting her chin open. I was standing right there on the ground below and witnessed the fall although there were so many kids on the platform it was hard to tell if and who had pushed her. My main concern was getting up to the platform and my crying Girl. It wasn't until I got her back to our picnic blanket that I realized she was bleeding but it was hard to tell how bad it was as she didn't want me looking at it. Luckily, we were at the park with friends and when we were finally able to see the wound, I was glad to have another opinion from my friend who thought that it was definitely big enough to warrant a trip to the doctor. So we loaded back up into the car and headed to the walk-in clinic, which fortunately, was very close to the park. After checking in at the clinic I called J who didn't even wait for me to tell him what had happened, as soon as he heard that we were at the walk-in clinic he said that he was on his way and hung up the phone. Soon after a nurse came out to look at the wound and apply a topical anestetic by way of a cotton ball taped to the Girl's chin. Half an hour later we were seen by the doctor who verified that she would indeed need stitches and then the worst of the ordeal began. Up until that point the Girl had been very calm, only crying for a few minutes after the fall had initially happened and while in the waiting room she was happily playing with her sweet friend, 'A.' The first step in the process was lying the Girl on the exam table and wrapping her up tightly in a blanket like a burrito so that her arms were completely pinned to her sides and immobile. Then the doctor asked if either J or I had a problem with blood or needles and needed to leave the room. Yeah, about that...I get extremely queasy and have even fainted at the sight of my own blood and 'J' has a serious needle-phobia. However, neither of us was about to leave our Girl in that situation and couldn't imagine a parent who would. So things proceeded and the next few moments were truly awful, the doctor had to numb her chin by way of needle and it was horrible. The Girl, who was being pinned down by J and her head held still by a nurse was screaming in pain and all I could do was rub her cheek and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I just wanted to scoop her up off of that table and hold her close, poor thing. Five minutes later we walked out of the exam room, the Girl with two stitches in her chin and a new teddy, 'Bandaid Bear' who got a matching bandaid on his chin and J and I with a huge feeling of relief that the ordeal was over.

J headed back to work after promising the Girl that he'd take her out for ice cream after dinner for being so brave and the Girl and I went with our friends (who had waited so patiently with us) to McDonalds to treat the girls to a Happy Meal and meet up with other friends that had arrived at the park shortly after we'd left and had been looking for us. The Happy Meals and play area at McDonalds were a big hit and just what was needed after a rough start to the day.

Despite how the day unexpectedly unfolded, I feel truly blessed that we made it nearly 3 years before the Girl had her first real injury, to have an amazing husband that drops everything at an instant's notice in order to be there for us and to have a terrific friend who was insistent upon accompanying us to the walk-in clinic.