Surrendering to Parental Cliches

Up until this week we have had a fairly calm job at parenthood. No major problems. No catestrophes.

And maybe because it was the week of 08-08-08 and all the stars were aligned, two typical parenting cliches happened:
an unplanned haircut and a trip to the ER. Both unrelated.

I was in Philadelphia on Tuesday on a sales call so Brian stayed home with the kids. Unfortunately, he also had a horrid stomach bug. He thought Lily was playing quietly by herself....but she was actually trying to keep her hair out of her face - by using her safety scissors. The results are below.

I'll admit - it could have been much worse. When I came home I had a serious talk with her about scissors and afterwards she claimed that she would "never scissor her hair again".

Shortly thereafter Brian is lying on the couch trying to suppress his nauseous stomach. Lily comes in to say that Jamison is playing in the toilet (yuck, but it happens). Brian said, ok can you close the lid? Lily replies: "no, daddy, he is in the toilet." Brian got into the bathroom and there was Jamison - just sitting in the toilet splashing. So gross. But so typical Jamison.

The next day Brian and I are at work. I'm packing up to leave at 3:30-4:00 ish and my mom calls to ask if I'm on my way. I said I was just about out the door - why? Jamison fell on the patio. He's cut his forehead and it looks pretty deep.

At that last sentence I pretty much know I cannot go over there. I have a slight losing-consciousness problem around blood and especially bloody wounds. Just typing this makes me weak. Brian raced to my mother's house.

He calls me about 20 minutes later to say that he is taking Jamison to the ER to see if he needs stitches. Both Brian and my mother note that Jamison is still in a fantastic mood and only cried for a few minutes before attempting another daredevil scheme; but the cut is deep so they are concerned.

The whole time I am nauseous but all I want to do is be with Jamison. But I know I can't since I would either pass out or be too weak to even care for him. I felt incredibly useless.

So Lily and I went to church. Brian called to tell me that Jamison needed three stitches but they were going to try to glue the wound shut first and see if that stopped the bleeding. It did work and you can see the results below. They were taken the next morning after breakfast.

There is no up keep or maintenance with the glue so that's a bonus. Hopefully it will heal fast and the scar will move on up his forehead as his already huge head gets huge-er.

Brian noted that within the space of 24 hours we already had encountered the child-cutting-her-own-hair and a trip to the ER. It's the kind of experinces I don't want to go through but if I have to do it, at least we consolidated and got them both over and done with quickly.