The Cut

"Mom! Can we get out the blankets? We want to play monsters!"

"Sure!" I said, not really sure what blankets had to do with monsters, but giving myself a mental high five. After taking a sick day the day before (thank you, PBS!), my goal was to keep the TV off for another ten minutes, ten minutes at a time, for as long as I could. Whatever this "monsters" game was, it would take up at least ten minutes, easy.

"C'mon, W! Help me!" E shouted, and together they pulled every single blanket, from the 2x3 cuddly baby blue blankets to the 5x7 afgans, replete with my college alma mater, out of the cabinet and onto the floor.

I folded diapers and watched my boys play together, giggling and shrieking with laughter as they stomped on blankets and put them on their heads, calling out, "I'm a monster! I'm a monster!" (or for W, "Monssa! Monssa!"). And then, as I was thinking about how wonderful it was to listen to their laughter, I glanced up to see W trip - over a blanket, over a toy, I have no idea - and fall face first into our coffee table, then flat to his back. I didn't jump up right away. He and E have both bonked their heads on the coffee table more times than I can count - the very one that Hubby and I bought during our engagement because it's rounded corners made it 'so safe' for our future children - and usually a quick, "Oh, wow! Are you okay?" and a kiss has them up and running again.

But this time, instead of getting up, W cried harder, and I noticed a perfect red line, about an inch long, under his lip. Thinking he must have busted his lip during the fall, I looked inside his mouth and found he had bruised and slightly cut himself. I looked back at the red line, now thick, and wondered how the blood would have gotten there from his mouth. Then it dawned on me. This is a different cut. And it's deep. I picked him up and ran to the kitchen for cloths, ice, water, whatever my brain could remember to do for cuts, yelling to my husband, who had been sleeping off a night flight, "You have to get up! We need to go to the ER!"

Bleary-eyed but quick, he entered the kitchen to find W screaming, E crying (both in sympathy and fear, I think), and me on the verge of tears, applying a cold cloth to W's wound. After a quick look, he agreed. W needed to see a doctor.

We spent a few frantic moments running around the house, grabbing everything we needed, while E followed Hubby, repeating, "The Doctor will fix him," in a creepy Dalek voice until Hubby couldn't take it anymore. (In E's defense, I had told him the doctor would fix W to help him calm down, and my husband wasn't responding. In Hubby's defense, he and I have been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately.) Once everyone was ready, we realized there was actually no point in all of us going; the best option was for me to take W by myself.

By the time we got to the hospital, W had stopped crying and was barely bleeding. I really shouldn't have been surprised. My kids always stop showing symptoms the second we walk into a doctor's office (which is not often, considering 9 times out of 10 there's not much a doctor can do). At the pediatrics clinic on base, that's fine. At the ER, not only do I look like a crazy, over-protective mother, they send out a bill. Still, I stuck with my gut instinct and waited for the nurse to call us back.

As it turns out, I may be crazy, but I was right to take him. After the doctor examined him, she brought in a couple nurses to wrap him in a blanket, burrito-style, and hold him down, while she cleaned the wound and applied the dermabond. I honestly think W was more traumatized by the treatment than he was the cut, but as soon as we walked out the door, he was back to his cheerful self, pointing out cars and trucks and airplanes.

Me, I'm still a little traumatized. Certainly there are mothers who have been through much, much worse, and W's cut was minor, in comparison. But seeing my baby bleeding, not being able to fix it; it was scary. And knowing that my beautiful child will now have a tough guy scar under his lip breaks my heart a little. They say that raising girls is hard, but I will tell you the truth. Boys are not "easy" for this Mommy.