An Interesting Friday

The morning of Friday, October 3rd was going along like any other Friday in the Bellows' house. I was urging the kids to eat their pancakes so we'd have enough time to do their hair and get them out the door in time for school. Brady has preschool on Fridays so I was making sure he was dressed and ready for us to go pick up the neighbor boys at 9:00am to take everyone to school. 

Ryan often will get his shoes on and be ready to go before I have time to get Camden ready and in the car so he will run down to the neighbor's house and wait in the driveway for me. This is what he decided to do, just like he had done so many times in the past. 

I got Camden in the car and drove down the street to wait for Fischer and Lukas to come out. Camden and I were waiting in the parked car, while Ryan and Brady chased each other around the Anderson's front yard. I was watching them play when suddenly Ryan disappeared from view and I heard a scream. I jumped out of the car and ran toward him. He had tripped and fallen face first into the pavement. I helped him up and put my arm around his shoulder. It was then that the Anderson boys were ready and were coming out of their house. I turned Ryan around and that's when I noticed that the opposite side of his face was covered in blood! It looked really bad. His glasses were bent completely flat and the hinge had gone all the way into the side of his head- giving him a pretty deep gash. 

By this time the other kids were catching on to what was happening and my neighbor was still at his front door. The gash looked deep enough for stitches, so we quickly changed plans and my neighbor drove the kids to school for me, while I tried to figure out what to do with Ryan. 

After calling his pediatrician and finding out that they could give him stitches in the office if he needed them, we drove straight there. Ryan was surprisingly calm the whole time. He held the paper towel on his head keeping pressure on the wound. He was mostly worried about missing his spelling test at school. That boy!

Once we got to the office and were settled in a room, I took another peek at his head. The bleeding had just about stopped and it looked about a million times better. I was kicking myself for taking him in so quickly and not waiting at home to see if the bleeding would stop on its own. (First time mom, anyone?)

Ryan was so brave while the doctor looked at his head and manipulated the wound. By the time the doctor came, I had decided that he definitely wouldn't need stitches- so when the doctor said he could give him one or two or he could just glue it, we went with the glue. The doctor then cleaned the wound really well (worth the copay right there). Ryan didn't make a sound as the doctor rubbed the wound (a lot harder than I would have ever tried to). Once the gash was cleaned up, you could see that it was really deep in the middle. That made me feel a little less sheepish about taking him in.

Once the glue was set we went to Costco to get Ryan's glasses reshaped. We got the grumpy lady at the eye glass counter, but she was able to bend them back into place- albeit begrudgingly.

On our way out we got some ice cream. Because that's what I do after a stressful situation. Ice cream and me are well acquainted.

We got Ryan back in school just in time for lunch. He even got to take his spelling test, It was quite an interesting morning! 

Ryan was allowed to wash the glue off after a week. There is still a mark where the cut was and it looks like he will have a little scarring. Other than that, he's as good as new!