Oh Bloody He....

ad! Bloody Head! After an almost blood free nearly 9 year parenting stint my streak was ended suddenly yesterday. A little back story first, my children are klutzy. They get it solely from my side and I've embraced this about them. They are also incredibly dramatic, this I'd like to blame on their father, again it's all me. So now that we've established these two important facts let's resume the story.

Joshua and Kaity were playing imagination upstairs with gusto and great detail until Joshua fell off Kaity's bed and hit his head on the bin of barbie furniture. All I heard downstairs was the THUD of impact followed by several seconds of silence and then the shriek of "I've got blood! I've got BLOOD!" Joshua has 'had blood' before and it was a tiny speck of blood that when wiped away didn't even return so for him to be shrieking didn't really alarm me. In fact, I called out "come downstairs" as I headed toward them from the kitchen.

We met behind the couch in the living room Joshua's hands covered in blood and his hair streaked red. I should also remind you that I rarely play poker because I don't have a very good bluff face and in the 2 seconds it took me to remember to bluff I must have had the "OH MY STARS YOU HAVE BLOOD" face because in that moment he lost it and started sobbing. I took him and his bleeding self to the kitchen and applied pressure to the back of his head still not sure if it was ER worthy or not and started asking questions.

Kaity was pacing back and forth in the kitchen so I sent her upstairs to get me a pair of pants and a tshirt (i was in pj's still and not outside-able pj's either!) She ran upstairs and I got Joshy calm enough to tell me that he fell off the bed. He then started this rhythmic chanting sob combo that went something like

wahwahwahWENEEDDADDYwahwahINHALINGSCREAMwahwahwahWENEEDDADDY

While Joshua was chobbing? santing? okay okay while Joshua was crying Kaity came back downstairs with clothes for him. I told her thank you (he was already dressed) and asked her to go upstairs and just grab me a pair of jeans.

She ran back upstairs.

He kept crying.

I kept applying pressure and decided, on my own of course, that we needed daddy!


I have never called Jeremy at work with a frantic "Come home" plea until yesterday. I called and
he could hear Joshua crying in the background and said he'd be home shortly. I hung up and informed Joshy in the most loving mothering nurturing voice I have that if he didn't stop crying that particular cry I wouldn't be able to help him because it made my brain melt. He immediately stopped, and I removed the 2nd round of paper towels to see how we were doing with clotting.

Insert a frantic Kaity tearing into the kitchen holding a pair of wadded up jeans that had obviously just been taken off. I look from the jeans (which had a pair of panties still coming out the top) to Kaity and back again. "Kaity, those are YOUR jeans....Mommy needs pants. for me. my pants for me." I don't know that I can capture the level of intensity with which she spat out the next sentence "THEY ARE THE ONLY JEANS I CAN FIND!" and she looked at me like I was crazy for not at least trying to make them fit!

Joshua saw the fear/nervousness on Kaity's face and said "Are you worried about me?" and she welled up with tears and said through quivering lips "yes" to which he assumed the epic wail from earlier only the phrase was "DONT WORRY ABOUT ME IT MAKES IT HURT WORSE!" Kaity kept trying not to worry but said she couldn't stop caring, he kept sobbing that she was making it hurt worse by caring about him. I sent her upstairs one last time for a pair of jeans for me w/specific instructions on where they would be and moved the whole fiasco into the living room.

While we were moving I took my hand off the back of Joshua's head and he gasped and screeched "put your hand back put your hand back! I can feel my brain leaking out" In actuality he could feel the bleeding starting again, although I couldn't convince him of that fact. His little body had been so tense and now his shoulders slumped and he sighed a sigh so deep it almost consumed him "Now I think I've gotta die" I laid his head in my lap and started cleaning the blood out of his hair as I promised him he wasn't going to die, that daddy was on his way home, that he didn't even need to go to the doctor and that ouchies on your head just bleed a lot. Kaity came tearing down the stairs yet again with clothes for me, she'd gone into the closet, she was sure it was right. She brought me a pair of Jeremy's jean shorts and a tshirt. I simply said thank you.

Jeremy came in while I was finishing up getting the blood out of Joshua's hair and he did all the corpsman daddy stuff and deemed him okay. Joshua was relieved that he didn't have to die quite yet and that his brains were still intact inside his head. He asked how much blood was in his hair and if it looked red, I told him that I had gotten most of it out and he started crying again. Apparently the best part of a head injury, in his little mind, was that he got to keep red hair. He had a whopping headache for the rest of the day and took it pretty easy. Last night he couldn't lay on his back to sleep because it was sore and he's got a pretty gnarly scab. Wow....what a Thursday!

**my husband has asked me to add this disclaimer stating that the blood volume may have been (he says greatly) exaggerated during the hysteria of the moment...I say he wasn't here there was blood people!**