Couch Trip

Last night we were at Steve's birthday party. It was lovely - neighborhood children playing together and eating the multi-colored gold fish and bumps on a log Joy set out for them, warming fire in the fireplace, everybody calmly chatting and sipping their beverages when it happened. Kate tripped and hit the bottom of Steve & Joy's couch with her face. We're big on down-playing these types of things because we want her to learn that life's full of these little setbacks and you must brush yourself off and move on. But seeing that fall I thought "that hurt" and leapt to my feet to pick her up. When I did I saw she was bleeding. A lot. From her eye.

"Life's full of these little setbacks" I told myself, trying not to cry as I rushed her to the bathroom with half the party attendees at my heels. Of course I know that even the most superficial head wounds bleed profusely but now I also know that such information is meaningless when the blood is spewing from your kid's head. Joy got her an ice pack, Steve got her Bactine, Jeremiah ran next door with Catherine and Margaret's mommy, Kore, to fetch some children's Motrin, and I pressed the cloth-covered ice up against Kate's injured eye while she nuzzled into my shoulder and got blood on me. Karolina, who's a P.A. and had just arrived, came in to take a look. The cut is on her eyelid, right in the fleshy part below the brow. Karolina pulled it apart to check the depth (I completely lost my poker face at the point, but Kate didn't even flinch.) There was discussion about the fact that it could use a couple stitches but in the end we decided that if we went to the ER on a Sunday night we'd end up waiting so long it would start to heal up anyway. She mentioned superglue might be an option. I was too squeamish to try that, although in retrospect, it probably would've done a good job. We kept pressure on it for awhile, Kate still leaning on me, but insisting her daddy hold her hand.

She never stopped bleeding completely while we were there and I spent a lot of time following her around with a damp cloth, trying to clean her up. She decided that she'd rather have the pasta Aunt JoJo offered than go home and within 20 minutes, she was running the length of the house with Ella and Ky, all of them squealing with delight. I remain horrified and irrationally guilt-ridden. This morning while I was cleaning her wound again she told me, reassuringly, "I'm OK, mommy. I had fun at the tea party!"