Nate's trip to the Emergency Room

Well, it's finally happened. Nate had his first trip to the emergency room last night! We were over at Chris's sister's house for dinner. The kids were downstairs playing in the theater room and the adults and the babies were upstairs getting dinner ready and visiting. I heard Nate scream from downstairs.

(Now we had spent the last four days surrounded by family for Thanksgiving. He had no naps during that time and went to bed very late each night. He was tired! So it wasn't the first time I had heard him scream. Usually it was because he had his feelings hurt or he was mad about something.)

So I waiting a second to see if he would stop. When it didn't I gingerly headed downstairs to see what was going on. One of my nieces was running and met me halfway down the stairs and said, "Nate's bleeding from his head!" That got my attention! I hurried to Nate and looked him over. He looked fine! Then another niece pointed out the back of his head. He had a gash on it that was dripping blood. I tried not to show the panic in my voice or face and told Nate he was ok. I lead him upstairs (keep in mind that he was screaming this whole time). I told Chris, again not trying to give away my panic, "I need you!" He grabbed Nate and took him to the bathroom. His old wound care training kicked in! He cleaned him up a bit and assessed the damage. The cut was a couple inches long and deep. "He'll need stitches." So we left Jordyn (and dinner) with Chris's family and drove to the emergency room.

It was a bigger cut than we thought. He ended up needing 7 staples! It took a "Nate taco" (aka Nate burrito-wrapped in a blanket so his arms would stay put), a male and female nurse slamming his face in the bed, Chris, and the doctor to hold him down. I stayed by his head and TRIED to calm him down. He doesn't like doctors or dentists anyways and usually throws a fit whenever he sees one. This time he REALLY had a conniption! We survived it. And he's fine now. He spent the day running around and wrestling Jordyn - no matter how many times I told him to sit still and settle down!

After getting back to Chris's sister's house that night, we got the story of what happened. Nate was playing on a love sac (big bean bag chair) and lost his balance and fell backwards onto the corner of the coffee table. It must have been quite a fall! Here's a picture of his shirt. It had dried and faded a lot by the time I got around to take it (about 5 hours after it happened).
Here's the best picture I could take of his staples. What a tough boy! After the doctor put the first two in, the staple gun broke and the staples were so loose that he had to pull them out and start all over. It was at that point that Chris (who had been watching the whole time) started to feel warm and a little dizzy. It makes a big difference when it's your own son!
And even though it was Sunday, he got a toy at the store for being so brave during all of it. He chose a conductor's baton like Leo from Little Einstein's.