If one has a son, one should expect such things

So as I was leaving work yesterday, trying to escape this ungodly heat we are experiencing, when I received the dread phone call from Lo.

“Meet me at the CHKD (Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters) Emergency room. J. fell down and cut open his head”.

My Oh Shit reflex kicked in pretty quickly and, wicked traffic notwithstanding, I tore ass down I-264, racing to the hospital. When I finally arrived, J. was alternating between bouncing around the ER like your average three year old to sobbing on his mother’s shoulder, like your average three year old with a pretty nasty head injury. Lo, not exactly the Rock of Gibraltar in moments of extremis (I love you honey but you know that is true), was cool as a cucumber. Seriously, after yesterday’s performance, I could not be more proud; she deserves a medal for that. Anyway, once I had a chance to make sure everyone was doing OK, Lo told me that what happened. And given J.’s genetic proclivity for Abrupt Ambulatory Failure (Lo and I are both as clumsy as Chevy Chase playing Jerry Ford and we appear to have passed on the “gift”), I kind of knew how this story was going to play out.

She had gone to pick J. up from school and when he saw her, he started running to her. At the proper moment to guarantee maximum crashieness, J. tripped, took a header into the vertical edge of a classroom door jamb and opened a half inch gash in his forehead. Hence, we found ourselves, for the second time in like 13 months, cooling our heels in the ER waiting room, pondering the number of stitches our boy would need.

Eventually, we were taken back for prep and the procedure. As J. was already freaking out and has an innate distaste for doctors, the decision was made to sedate him. That was when the real fun began. The wailing quickly morphed into giggling, then a boozy rendition of the “ABC” song and the boy that would not sit still for more than a minute looked up at us and said “Can I lie down?” It was too precious to quantify and funny as hell to boot. Lo and I were trying mightily and ultimately unsuccessfully to suppress our laughter but what can you do. Why, you can take a few pictures with your phone, of course.

This is my boy on drugs. And posting that takes me out of the running for the Parent of the Year award.



















Shortly thereafter, the doctor and nurses got to work. Even with a local anesthetic and a sedative-induced haze, J. would not be still enough for them to do their thing so he had to be papoosed and restrained by two nurses. And God bless them; they did their level best to comfort him while the wound was cleaned and stitched. Let me say, everyone who worked on J. was absolutely marvelous. Really, I cannot say enough about how good they were with him, so big ups CHKD.

Four stitches and four hours later, we were released. J. is fine and escaped without a concussion, thank goodness. I took Lo and J. back to Lo’s car so that they could head to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal. After I dropped them off, I went to the store for booze because the doctor failed give us sedatives as well. On the way, I called my mother to tell her what happened. Her response was that of a woman who had taken multiple trips to the ER with her own boys: “Hmm. That remind you of anyone?”

With that, I had a good laugh and started to count my own scars. Boys will be boys. I just hope we can go better than a year before our next incident…