It's Official!

It's OFFICIAL! What's official, you ask? I am finally a parent! Even though Taz will be five in October, I feel like this last week we reached a milestone that only a true parent can reach. We got our first stitches! I was amazingly calm about it, too. Much more calm than when our neighbor, Spencer, was at our house and fell and has to get stitches, but that's a whole different story! It happened Wednesday night. Scott had just left for Young Men's and I was cleaning up dinner. Taz asked if he could go outside, and I said no, and that we were inside for the night. And so he went down into the basement. About five minutes later I hear him crying and by the sound of his cry, I knew he was hurt. He came up stairs and for some reason I was expecting blood, but at first sight there was none. I asked him what was hurt and he said, "my head!" He walked toward me, pointing to his wound, and I that's when I saw the blood. It didn't look very bad, that is, until he got closer to me and I saw that where it lacked in width, it made up for in depth. In a very calm voice, I called Scott and asked him to please come home and that Taz needed stitches. I then called my doctor's office, who THANK GOODNESS, was still open, and they told me to come right over.

I knew that the key to success in this would be to keep Taz distract and NOT let him under ANY circumstances see or hear mention of the shot. I think we were pretty successful. He cried a little bit, but no major freaking out. The Nurse Practitioner told him to pretend he was blowing candles. I sort of laid over the top of him to hold him down and helped him blow candles and tried to say anything to distract him. Scott was holding Asher and making sure he didn't get too traumatized. Oddly enough, he sat as still as can be and watched the entire thing. After they stitched him up (actually they used staples. Two of them! Ouch!), they cleaned off the blood. Taz was nervous, and I said to him, "You can't leave blood in your hair or you will look like a vampire!" The Nurse Practitioner look and me and while sort of rolling her eyes said, "Do vampires have blood on their hair? I thought it was their teeth." I seriously wonder if she has kids...grrrrr...

I had given Taz a quarter to hold in his hand and told him that it was his brave quarter and that if he was really brave that he could get a gumball out of the machine on the way out. He was so brave! Just like the brave little toaster!

In case you are wondering how the gash happened, it goes like this. After I told Taz that he could not go outside, he went downstairs and tried to climb out the window. He pulled the blinds down, right out of the wall, and on top of his head. It was a lesson learned for him - If you don't listen to mom, you get stitches. As for me, well I just feel all grown up now. Actually, I'm surprised it took this long!

Here is the story in Taz's words: