November 29, 2006 ~ Falling Down
Wednesday.
I'd relapsed on the cold yesterday. Felt pretty bad. Had planned on a quiet, restful day. Maybe Grove would even let me nap with him.
But when I heard the crash and then Grove started crying and screaming in that timber that he reserves for only when he's really hurt, and I started running back to the living room that I'd left only a second before, and Rose was running toward me with the "follow me, the pup's hurt!" expression, and when I found him he had blood all over his face and both hands, I knew that it was not going to be a quiet, restful day.
I picked him up and cradled him while wiping the blood off with a cloth, trying to find the source. He kept putting his hand to his mouth. Bit his tongue? No. I put the cloth in the front of his mouth and it came away bloody. Maybe something up under his lip? He wouldn't let me look. The bleeding was slowing. Deciding that comfort was more important for the time being, to calm him, I nursed him for a few minutes, for if he could nurse it couldn't be too bad.
I finally got him to let me look. It didn't look too bad. There was a pretty big gash between his lip and gum, though. Did that need stitches or not? I called Morgan and asked him to swing by home, both for a second opinion and for someone to calm Grove while I showered and dressed if I needed to take him to the doctor.
Grove has been practicing walking for the last several weeks, clinging to furniture as he wobbles around the room. And his teeth--one on top and a new one on the bottom--are still very new, so he doesn't know how to be careful with them yet. He looked up at me with teary eyes and let out a shaky sigh.
"Oh, let's just take him to the doctor, just in case," was Morgan's call. So I showered, and dressed. And knew that this was going to make my cold worse. Ah well.
As I came out of the bathroom, Morgan was shaking his head. "It's no wonder he hurt himself. You should have seen what I found him doing..."
He was sitting balanced on his big hard plastic ball without either foot touching the ground, wobbling precariously, clutching the far side of the laundry basket, which was teetering back and forth. He and the ball and the basket were moving much like a cartoon character poised on the edge of a cliff, about to fall. Good grief. Crazy baby.
They were able to see him an hour later, which gave me just enough time to eat lunch and leave. The swelling had gone down in his lip by then, and he was back to smiling at everyone in sight. When the doctor came in, Grove grinned and I started with an apologetic, "We probably don't even need to be here, but just in case..."
Grove fussed when the doctor looked in his mouth, but grinned at him as soon as he stopped. The child would smile at the devil. It'll heal on it's own, but he's back to only pureed foods for a few days.
And as soon as we got back home, he was off climbing and exploring again, of course, making me run to catch him as he fell.
none the worse for wear
Oh, and a few of you objected to my calling the picture at the end of this entry "horrible." I didn't mean that my mother and I looked horrible (well... except that I was blinking). I thought we looked pretty good. I meant that it was horribly framed, I had to crop it way down to get anything decent, and I didn't know that my camera could take such a badly overexposed and bleakly colored shots. I adjusted the contrast and saturation some in Photoshop and it was still pretty bad. And, of course, there was nothing I could do about the fact that she had focused on the rocks behind us rather than us. Heh. Guess one shouldn't ask a perfectionist if a picture is good or not...
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