Everything was just coming out of the oven when Imogen decides to take a header into the pub table chair support rail. Face first, holding a glass (that thankfully did not break) without any attempt to break her fall. Pick her up and she is covered in blood! HOLY SHIT!
People I want in an emergency: My husband Nich. Super calm, brave face for the little one, logically thinking of what we should do.
People I don't want in an emergency: DeeDee. Burst into tears, starts babbling "oh my god, oh my god" and freaking the baby out.
So we calm her down (Imogen, not DeeDee), apply pressure with some guaze we had and decide the cut isn't that bad. (humur me, I don't want it to be that bad, so it isn't, right?) Then Nich, Ken and I pile into the car with Imogen and head off to Rite Aid to get some butterfly bandages and more gauze and all that good stuff to make her better. I of course wait in the car because who wants to be the lady carrying a blood soaked toddler into Rite Aid with a huge gash near her eye? Not me. Should have told me right there it was bad enough, right?
Drive home, Nich cleans the wound, attempts to apply butterfly bandages, decide, okay, maybe it is deeper than we thought. It won't stop bleeding, she is taking off the bandage as soon as we put it on, so fuck it, lets go to the emergency room.
Ken follows in his car because Nich does have a show that he is hopefully going to make after this drama goes down. Head to beautiful Marina Del Rey and walk into a totally empty emergency waiting room! With fishes for Imo to watch. By this time, she is running around the waiting room, refusing to be calm and act injured (which we were hoping she would be wailing so that we would be seen faster, but she wasn't going that route!). They take us to a room, tell us our MediCal isn't current (oh, this is going to be a fun Monday trying to get that straightened out!) and we wait. and wait. and wait. I wish that I had taken a picture of the "baby jail" they put us in. Imo was like a monkey on it, totally climbing (no, I have no idea how she got the cut on her head!) and raising a rucus. Now, I only tell you this because there is a crouchety ol lady in the next room who yells out every 5 minutes, "help, I need to go to the bathroom." or "help, I need to get out of bed" or "help, help help." Well, Imogen decides to copy her whenever she says "help" until the ol croutchey grouch says, "shut up little girl!" OMG
This was the cutest dress. Now it is cut up the back and blood soaked. Guess it would be pretty morbid to hold on to it.
After 3 hours, the doctor comes in, determines that she needs 3 stitches and we move rooms so that Imo can be put into a baby papoose. For all those people out there that have no idea what this is, ignorance is bliss. For everyone else, this wonderfully useful torture device scared the crap out of everyone in the room except Imogen. They swaddle her up in a sheet, strap her in, nurse holds her head, doctor covers her face with a sterile sheet and then the worst part of parenting begins. I never ever want to look into one of my daughter's eye while a doctor is sticking a fish hook in the other one. 20 minutes of complete balls out crying, struggling and us adults keeping our cool and Imogen has 4 lovely stitches in her face. She promptly goes to sleep on my shoulder and we make it home in time for Nich's show. I stay home with Imogen because all I want to do at this point is cuddle her and make sure she knows that we love her still.
After the stitches. Originally the doctor thought 3, then re-evaluated. Then, one of the ones she put in wasn't straight enough so she had to re-do. Poor girl!
This morning, she is bouncing around on grandpa's bed and to look at her you would think nothing traumatic just happened to her. Oh, the resiliency of the child's mind. Now if only Nich and I can forget.
The offending chair. She fell on the support rail at the bottom and must have caught it just right. Nich and Ken both wanted to throw them out the window last night!
