First set of stitches :(

This morning beautiful with mild temperatures (compared to the past couple of months!) so we wanted to spend it outside. We had planned on meeting some friends at a park, but they had some unexpected things come up, so we went on our own anyway. We decided to go to Stallings Park, but realized it was under renovations! I had no clue that was going on and hadn't thought it had been that long, but the sign on the gate read June 6th, so I guess it has been over 2 months since we were there! So, we turned around and decided to go to Colonel Francis Beatty Park. I pulled into the main park area when Sean starts saying, "No! I want to go to the one with the fireman's pole where we had the church picnic and daddy was playing horseshoes there!" It took me a minute, but remembered about the smaller park area just up the road inside the park. So, I obliged and drove around there so he could go down the fireman's pole!.

Well, we had only been there a total of about 2 minutes before Lilly is climbing up a short up and down monkey bar set contraption that I've never seen anywhere else but there. She had gotten to the top of the ladder where it starts to go across like monkey bars, and I knew she couldn't hold on so I started walking over to her to help her down. Well, I wasn't 5 feet away from her before her foot slipped and she couldn't hold on with her hands, and down she went. Her chin hit right on the rung of the ladder and she started screaming.

I ran the 4 or so feet left and didn't realize the cut at first until she lifted her head and there was blood all over my shirt. There was a man that came over to help who had been over in the picnic shelter. To be honest, when we first got there I was a bit nervous that he was over there laying on the bench and we were all alone on the playground, but I put it out of my mind when I saw he had a book on the table along with a Chick-fil-a cup, so I figured he probably had been there reading instead of sleeping there overnight or something like that.  Anyway, he had a tissue and covered Lilly's chin and helped me get all the kids to the van. I'm so thankful that he was there because she was crying and screaming all the way and I wouldn't have been able to push Brilee who was sleeping in the stroller and carry her too. He even asked me if I had band-aids, which I did in my diaper bag--but in all the commotion hadn't thought to get them out! It was so deep, I put two on the cut in a criss cross shape to try to keep it closed the best I could.

I called Matthews Children's Clinic, and they told me that they won't do stitches in the office if they were on the face and that I would have to go to the ER. I was worried we would have a long wait in the ER, so Jon called his mom to see if she could meet me there. We didn't have to wait at all, though because we were the only ones there, thankfully. The nurse took us right back and started checking us in. When we got to the main room where we would meet the dr., Nana showed up to take Sean with her (which I was SO thankful for because he was already very curious about all the equipment in the room). Lilly was just so pathetic whimpering and not wanting to get out of my lap. Brilee was, as usual, happy as a lark sitting in her stroller.

When the nurse came in to put some numbing gel on her chin, this was the first clue that Lilly wasn't going to be an easy patient. She screamed and kicked and cried so hard just for the nurse to dab the cotton swab on her chin! The nurse talked about getting her a red popsicle and all, which did not impress Lilly one bit!

The dr. came in afterwards to check it out and said that it would take about 10 minutes for the gel to work before he could sew it up. He said it should only take 2 surface stitches just to hold the skin together enough to heal and that he would put steri-strips on top of it.

Well, when they came back to do that procedure, it was the worst part ever. The 2 nurses couldn't hold her down alone, so the dr. asked me if I could hold her arms down in the middle and lay my head on her tummy over her hands. She was screaming, "mommy, mommy don't do that!" over and over again and crying and kicking her legs (which the other nurse was holding). I was ok up until that point, which is when I started to tear up just because I knew she was making it worse on herself. I was praying that she would calm down and let the dr. sew her up. He said, "oh, yeah, she got this really deep" and ended up putting 5 stitches in. (The screaming and kicking continued this whole time!) I'm not sure how he was able to sew her up so good with all her movement. He said, "she sure is a moving target!" Guess he's probably used to it, though.

Her eyes were so puffy and swollen when he was done, she looked so pitiful...and she wouldn't even eat the popsicle the nurse brought her. Brilee ended up eating most of it before she was ready to take over!

We're supposed to take her back in 5 days to get her stitches out. The steri-strips are supposed to dissolve on their own in a couple of days and he said if she starts picking at them, to put a regular band-aid over the area. I feel so sorry for her, and am so surprised that she is the first of our kids to have to go to the ER for stitches. Sean (and Brilee now!) seem to be the little daredevils while Lilly is the more reserved, cautious child. I'm so thankful that it wasn't worse than it was and that she seems to be feeling better after we left. All she seemed to think about after that is that Sean was with Nana and she wasn't! I gave her some Ibuprofen, so she is now taking a nice, long nap. Poor little girl!