Baby Face != Hammer

This weekend was supposed to rock. This weekend was supposed to be the perfect relaxation. This weekend was not supposed to end at the hospital.

Saturday, we took Alastair over to his grandparents' house to spend the night. We dropped him off right after lunch, so we had the afternoon and all night to ourselves. I was a little bummed, though, since I had an autocross scheduled for Sunday, and that meant I wouldn't see the little guy until late in the afternoon on Sunday.

So we set off on our fun afternoon, picking up a couple of new baby outfits, getting tickets for Grindhouse, and grabbing some very very tasty Indian grub at India K'Raja. Very yum. T3h yum.

We saw Grindhouse (freakin' awesome, but like everyone's saying: Quentin could have cut some dialogue...), went home, and crashed for the night.

Sunday morning brought the first bit of bad news: the autocross was canceled because of miserable weather. The weather itself was the second bit of bad news, but at least it let me sleep in for a while.

Skipping ahead to the afternoon (around 4:15), we popped in a Sesame Street video. Alastair loved the parts with Big Bird, but when he wandered off screen, so did Alastair's attention. Not fascinated by a song featuring Oscar, he grabbed a ball and started toddling around. Then, right in front of the TV, he face-planted into the doors of the TV cabinet. Right onto the door handles, which are metal and kind of pointy.

I rolled him over and saw his skull through the gash over his right eye.

Off went the TV, he started wailing, and I told Amanda that we were headed out for medical assistance: the gash would need stitches.

Now, it's worth mentioning that Alastair doesn't wallow in self-pity. About 3 minutes after the gash-crash, he just wanted to go back to playing. I was holding him with his head level to reduce the bleeding (which functionally didn't exist: no blood ran down his face at all, at any point), and he just wanted to sit up. He wasn't crying, he wasn't tremendously frustrated, he wasn't even grumpy. He wasn't acting strange: he just figured the ordeal was over. Weirdo.

But, ever the vigilant parents, we whisked him off to Patient First (it's only 1/2 mile from home, whereas the hospital is about 6 or 7 miles away). We waited only about 7 or 8 minutes in the lobby, and Alastair looked at a couple of books while I loosely held a big piece of gauze over his face. The triage nurse quickly sent us to St. Mary's hospital, since she figured the hospital could glue the wound shut, where Patient First would have to suture it.

Now, it's worth mentioning that Patient First and St. Mary's are in exactly opposite directions, so we weren't thrilled to have wasted the time, but at least we had exhausted the immediate car option.

We got to St. Mary's, checked in, and saw the triage nurse there. Then it was off to the lobby to wait, and he really enjoyed watching some NASCAR and playing peekaboo with the other children there. Again: weirdo. You have a big hole in your face, and you're trying to play?!?

We went back to the exam rooms, they took a quick look and determined that glue wouldn't do since there was hair in/around the wound, and sutures it would be (dammit: we could have stayed at Patient First!). But first, we'd have to wait 40 minutes for an anesthetic patch to work its magic.

In the end, we had to hold him still while a physician's assistant sewed two stitches into our very unhappy (and very conscious) son's face. Then, 2 minutes later, he was fine.

We went home, cuddled a lot, and put him to bed without any muss or fuss.

So that's it: Alastair's first trip to the emergency room at almost 15 months. Needless to say, we took the handles off the TV cabinet doors right after he went to bed. Tomorrow I'll dismantle the Iron Maiden from the den, and maybe I'll even put the unprotected band-saw away. But I'm not, I repeat not, going to cover up those bare live wires that snake across the middle of the floor. Boy's gotta learn...