Trauma!

 This week, Bountiful Baskets opened a new location in Wester.  The pick-up is at 10:30 in the morning, so I didn't have to crawl out of bed and schlep to Less Wester at 8:15 on a Saturday morning.  I was so excited!

Z rolled out of bed begging to 'go somewhere', so I bundled up the kids and took them with me.  I had decided to be a volunteer, so we were going at 9:30.  (Volunteers get to split up the extras!)  The distribution happens at a park, so I figured it was win win.   Play time for the kids.  Extra veggies for me.  Sweet!

Unfortunately, all did not go smoothly.  It was a chilly windy morning, so the kids started whining about going home almost right away.  I fussed at them to get out from under my feet and GO PLAY.  I gave them the option of sitting at the end of the table where we were working or going back out to play.  They chose to play.  Whew, right?

Um, no.

I was elbow deep in tangelos when a I heard a blood curdling scream.  I look up and see Z coming toward me like something out of a zombie flick: hollering and covered in blood.  It took me a moment to process what I was seeing, but once I did, I ran to her as quickly as my little round self could go.  She had tried to do a flip on the monkey bars, slipped and split her chin and chomped her tongue.

The cut was wide open, and to my untrained eye looked like it might take a stitch to close it.  After I staunch the worst of the bleeding, I reach for my phone to call T.  No phone.  I had taken it in the house to charge, which I never do, and forgotten put it back in the car.  I sprint back to the tables and ask to borrow a cell phone.  I only hoped T would answer a call from an unknown number - he's a hard core screener. 

Luckily, he did pick up, but he didn't have any answers for me.  But he had lots of questions.  Finally, crying freely now, I told him that I was all flustered and that I just needed him to tell me what to do.  Totally uncharacteristic.  Finally we agreed that he would come to me, bring my phone and we'd figure it out together.

While we were waiting for him, the nice mom who let me borrow her phone got my basket together and offered some advice.  She told me there was a walk-in clinic not far from the park.  She said her five kids had required stitching up from time to time, and they were nice there.  So I borrowed yet another phone, from a friend this time, and headed out.

Z, meanwhile, has been caterwauling the whole time.  The idea of stitches made her cry even harder.  Q joined in when I told him he would likely go home with Daddy (he wanted to see the stitching up process).  Finally I had to tell him he wasn't allowed to cry since he wasn't hurt and I couldn't have all three of us crying!

They were, indeed, quite nice at the clinic.  When they saw that Z was actively bleeding, they took her right back.  A nurse cleaned her up and we waited for the doctor.  The wait was maybe 45 minutes, which as it turns out was a good thing.  By the time he got there, Z was fully calmed down and in a post-adrenaline-rush crash.  It was determined that the scarring would be the same whether we stitched or didn't stitch, so we went with the much less traumatic butterfly bandage.  Z was disappointed that it didn't have actual butterflies on it.

After the clinic, we went out for medicinal ice cream.  Other than some slushy speech from where she chomped her tongue, she doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear.  I, on the other hand, am sporting
a few new gray hairs.  Good thing blond hides gray!