stitches.

i've been told i am just like my mom.

overprotective.

and i am to an extent.

i've been trying to not be that way when i am at

my sister's watching all 5 kids(hers and mine).

i let them play in a room and do their own thing,

not hovering and stopping their fun every 5 seconds.

well, that doesn't really work for me.

i will still let them have fun, but lay down the rules

a little harsher on my own kids.

as i speak, justin is putting emily in time out for running in

my sister's house.

yesterday, i had to take emily to the minor emergency for stitches.

i, of course, took pictures of the head wound.

emily and her cousin alyssa were running and playing "chase"

in the basement as i was cleaning up from dinner.

i heard the scream(not the, "he hit me" scream, but the

"i can't catch my breath, that hurt so bad" scream)

and went running down the stairs.

brendon met me at the bottom of the stairs saying emily

hit her head on the fireplace.

crap.

then he said that her nose was bleeding.

double crap.

i immediately think of justin's mom and how she just had

surgery on her broken nose.

i finally got a clear shot of emily from across the room,

bloody face and hair.

she had hit her head just above her right eyebrow on the

front of the brick fireplace.

next to it, was a smaller, deeper gash from where

she caught the corner of the brick that was next to the one

that left the previous mark.

she had been playing dress up and was wearing alyssa's

white vet jacket, which was all red.

i whipped the oversized jacket over her head and

shoved it to her head.

lots of blood.

thankfully, i can handle blood.

you can bleed all you want and i will be able to

calmly assess the situation.

i just kept telling her through her screams just as

i would if she had a papercut,

"you're okay. it'll be just fine."

i made my sister rush home from her kid's conferences

so i could get her out of the house.

justin was on his way to class,

but ended up leaving as soon as it started and joining us at the er.

emily was very calm throughout the remaining night.

more so than i ever thought imaginable.

she's my panicky child.

aiden got stitches at 22 mos and never cried,

just sat there and watched the doctor stitch it up.

emily was not that cool.

though i had told her exactly what they were

going to do, we couldn't account for the severity of the wound.

it wouldn't numb properly with the easy, non-traumatic numbing gel.

they had to shoot it with a syringe.

then came the blood curdling scream, the pale faced mother

and the less than brave daddy wearing the police uniform.

i could tell he wasn't a fan of the whole ordeal.

i was on the verge of either throwing up or passing out.

or both.

i don't do well once all of the blood is removed and people

start messing around with the wound.

ugh.

feeling sick again just thinking about it.

it's not enough to just stick the area and inject the meds.

no, there was a lot of moving the skin around with the needle...

okay, i have to stop.

the visual was too much last night.

to do the stitches(through non-stop screaming, btw), they covered

her eyes with a towel, which did nothing to subside the screams.

the doctor doing it wasn't quite a doctor.

i think she was either an intern or first year resident.

i watch too much grey's anatomy.

anyway, she only put 3 stitches(as justin tells me, cause i couldn't watch

most of it) in emily's long cut and two in her short one(that i DID see).

the gap on the large wound was massively wide though, so when the

older doctor came in and checked her work, he had her add a total

of 3 more to the wound.

the large ended up with 6 and the small with 2.

i took photos of the different stages of trauma. :)

there's one with the wound at mary anne's, minus all of the blood.

a few with bandages and one with the stitches.

oh, and one with her orange popsicle at the end. :)

i took them with my camera phone and sent them to jen,

so hopefully she can post them sometime.

today, emily is the owner of 8 stitches, a large gauze bandage and a

once white vet jacket.

alyssa said she didn't want it back and that emily could keep it.

ha ha.

(and justin is watching the 5 kids while i am on the computer, in case you were wondering. :))