I have to say, I reacted much better this time around! Two years ago, Theodore had to get his toe stitched up and I did not handle it well. You can read about it here.
On Friday, Theodore, Viola, and I went to pick raspberries with some friends. We had barely picked half of a pint when Theodore accidentally smacked Viola in the face with a small wooden crate. Viola immediately started the "I'm really hurt, not just annoyed that I'm being picked on by my older brother" scream and blood started gushing down her face and I could immediately tell that it was a really deep gash that needed stitches. I sighed, put my half-picked pint of raspberries down, and took both of them to the van. Of COURSE I only had one wet wipe left in my bag, but thankfully the woman who owned the raspberry patch had a large supply of paper towels. I blotted up what I could, drove to the closest ER, and was advised by the doctor there to take her to the local children's ER, which has more experience with stitching up small children.
By the way, all this time Theodore was feeling AWFUL. He started crying as soon as Viola did because he knew he did something wrong. I was reassuring him the whole time that I wasn't mad at him, but he needs to be more careful next time. I had to carry two crying children in and out of the first ER. Eh, at least I'm used to it.
By the time we got to the second ER, the bleeding had stopped and Viola had pretty much recovered from her trauma. Viola was stitched up by a very competent PA, but it was horrible for her. First, the nurse put some anesthetizing gel on her lip to numb the surface, then they stitched her up. They had to strap her down to the table so she wouldn't wiggle, which she HATED. At one point between the strapping down and stitching, she let out a pathetic little "help me!" while crying the whole time. It was really hard to watch, but I had to be as close as I could to give her a little bit of comfort. She got three stitches inside the wound, and eight on the surface.
I thought Theodore might be interested in watching the stitching, so I told him to watch. To be honest, I didn't really think about letting him watch because I was so intent on calming Viola down. He watched for a minute and when the procedure was almost done I realized he wasn't by my side anymore. He had gone to the other side of the bed where he couldn't see anything and his face had gone pale and green and he looked woozy. I immediately told him to sit down and got him a cracker from the nurse,then we talked a little about Viola getting stitches. He cried a little and I felt bad that I hadn't had him distracted during the procedure. Oh, well. Now you know, don't let your 4-year-old watch his little sister get stitches!
Viola's doing well. Her lip barely looks as though it was split wide open two days ago. She have a faint scar, but in return she'll forever be able to blame her older brother for it. I was telling Diedra that it's a shame that she can't write in her journal about her mean older sibling (like we all did).
