Stitches

It's funny. I always thought Robert would be the first of my kids to need stitches. Well, James beat him to it today. He was helping me in the garden and took a nasty spill right on the metal border that keeps the grass at bay. Split his knee right open. Didn't bleed much. He didn't cry all that much, either, but one look and I knew a band-aid wouldn't quite do the job this time:

BEFORE

AFTER

The folks at the ER were freakishly accommodating and professional. They went to GREAT lengths to minimize James' pain and make him more comfortable. They asked if we would like a child specialist to help us. That was a real plus. This woman was a nurse who also had games, toys, and coloring pages. She immediately won James' trust (which is really, really hard for strangers to do!). She had accurate and honest and clear answers to his questions that expertly avoided specific trigger words (shot, hurt, pain, needle, stitches...she called them band-aid strings). Anyway, he did have to get several shots to numb the area for stitches, but I won't be surprised if all he remembers from the experience is watching PBS cartoons and playing puzzles on this nurse's iPad.

We weren't home more than 10 minutes before he was playing on the floor as usual and bleeding all over everything. See? He's not in much pain. I had to wrap his knee with an ACE bandage just to remind him to give the knee a break. We go to the pediatrician in a week or so to have the stitches--er, uh, band-aid strings--removed.