Our first ER visit

Emerald's lovely head laceration

Just above her right eye, in the hair line (which made for some fun stitching)

Emerald watching us work when she was supposed to be napping.

In her tent city

Well, we had our first ER visit last night. Emerald fell against our stair banister (which is square shaped at the base) and split her head open pretty bad. I was at bible study, and Skip was watching the older 2 kids. He called me, saying "get home NOW!" I knew it had to be serious. He said he was in drawing a bath for the kids, heard a thud and then screaming. He looked out to see her lying down, screaming loudly. Luckily, she was w/o clothes, as it was bath time. He placed in the bathroom, went to get a rag to clean her up, and when he came back in she was standing in a pool of blood. He sent Calvin to search out the phone (to call me) and poor Calvin tried hard to help. She was still screaming when I got home, poor little girl. She is such a daddy's girl, but wanted me when I got home :) I called Heidi, and w/o hesitation, she dropped everything and raced over to the house to watch the boys for us--thanks so much Heidi!! You were a life-saver. Our neighbor, Jamie, even watched the boys for us for about 10 minutes until Heidi got there. We feel so lucky.

Skip and I put her in the car and drove her to Children's Mercy South, which is such a good place to take children, so kid-friendly. They triaged her, got us in a room and put some numbing meds on her. She was in really good spirits driving to the hospital, giggling, joking with us. She did great up until we had to irrigate the wound. Then, our sweet, precious little girl turned into a STRONG kicking, thrashing wild child. Poor little girl. She was sooooooooo not a happy camper. We can really appreciate strong lungs in this household, what with a preemie and 2 adults with asthma. That girl has some lungs! They finally got her stitched up, both internal and external stitches. I don't know how that doc did that with all the moving around she was doing. Trying to hit a moving target!! Finally, they were done and Emerald got a slushie. She was asleep w/in minutes in the car on the drive home. We got home about midnight, relieved poor Heidi, and put her in her bed. Surprisingly we actually slept from about 12:45-6:45 w/o incident! Amazing!! Our poor little girl. The cut is mostly in her hair line, but extends slightly into her forehead. It made for some interesting stitching with all that crazy hair in the way. And I had planned to get her hair cut over the weekend, now it will get postponed even longer. She can't get it directly wet for a week or so, and how am I supposed to wash that mop of hair?? She can't submerge it for 2 weeks, good thing her swim lessons aren't for 3 weeks.

I had planned to blog about other things today. I had planned to write about how Emerald is going to Vacation Bible School with Aunt Heidi this week. She went yesterday and LOVED it so much. We kept her home today, it was a long night and I want to keep an eye on her today. Guessing she'll be back tomorrow. We also watched Josiah yesterday. He was such an easy baby! Took a great nap for me. Zach took a 3 hour nap for me yesterday!! Great babies.

I had also planned to blog about our washing machine. About 2 weeks ago it started acting funny. It wouldn't turn right after I had the clothes out. Skip briefly looked at it and it seemed to start acting better. I did another load of laundry, and the drum inside felt different, weird. We called a repair guy, who finally came yesterday. He took one look at it and said, "bad news". It broke one of the tripod legs. He said it'd be a $650-700 repair!! No thanks!! He did inform us we were lucky b/c if another leg had broken it would have spun out of control, possibly breaking the inner plastic piece and spilling water all over our floor, possibly damaging our flooring. Our laundry is upstairs, which could have been bad if it'd have leaked below or done water damage on the second story. So, good news, right?! Needless to say, we are heading out to purchase a new machine today. Funny thing is, my neighbor, Jamie, had her washer go out last week and bought one this weekend. We should have asked the store for a 2-for-1 deal, right?!

It was a day yesterday! First the washer, then Emerald to the ER. I told Skip to be careful driving home last night. I was fearful that our 3rd event might take place. I am just so glad that Emerald is fine and that she didn't injure herself any worse. My poor baby girl. It is just no fun at all having to hold down your little one while they get stitched up. I don't wish that on my worst enemy. Way to go Emerald, you were a trooper little girl!! Oh, and Dr. Mike, if you are reading this, she wished you were there! She kept asking for you. Personally, I am glad you weren't there, as I would have hated you to be the bad guy. She thinks you hung the moon!