So imagine the sadness in my heart when Chris woke up just after midnight (on his birthday) with croup. Poor little munchkin - crying, scared, exhausted and sick is not the way to start a birthday! We canceled his little get-together with a friend he made at swim lessons so his b-day would be quite low-key. Good thing he really won't remember it.
Of course, the rest of the family will probably never forget it.
The Reader's Digest version is that we ended up with a family room/kitchen area that looked somewhat like a war-zone and a boy in the ER with stitches.
The longer story goes like this: we were playing 20 questions at the dinner table (our centerpiece was Charley, the fish. This information plays an important role in the story in a bit). Steve was "it" and we were going around the table asking questions (yes, I guess that IS how you play the game) Parker wanted to give questions to Matthew, and we were stopping him (he always answers for his little brother, even when Matthew knows the answer). Matthew was refusing to ask a question.
I know, reading it now it sounds so simple and silly - getting so upset over questions - but for Matthew and Steve, it was getting really heated. Matthew got up from the table and stood by Parker (who was in front of the fish bowl) and then he started to cry. Matthew hates to cry - he tries his best to hide his face or hide his entire body when he cries.
This time he was out in front of ALL of us, which I am sure made him feel even more trapped and ashamed. He made a move as if to put his head down on the table forehead first.
Except his motion was intercepted by the fish bowl, which gave way under the weight of Matthew's rather hard and heavy head. And, as physics would dictate, Matthew's head kept moving even after the initial impact.
The next few moments were a blur, but the general scene included a lot of broken glass and blood, screaming from Matthew, screaming and running around from Parker, a fish flopping on the floor, birds flying everywhere, and the icing on the cake was Christopher who was walking around, screaming and throwing up. If you looked up MAYHAM or BEDLAM in the dictionary - well - you'd find my house.
We got Matthew to the ER - the bleeding had stopped by the time we got there (I left with Steve covered in Christopher's explosions, Chris crying in the tub and the kitchen looking like a battle ground - in dealing with the ER, I know I got the better end of that bargain!) The nurse cleaned the cuts (3 of them, all somewhat big, but it could have been MUCH worse!) and removed a sneaky piece of glass. He got 4 stitches and a copious amount of human-grade super glue to hold his head together.
I am the mom of 3 very active boys. We have gone just over 9 years with out a bloodied-mess drive to the ER until yesterday. All in all, I think we have been doing OK.Here's my little trouper, shortly after getting all stitched back together. Even bloodied and stitched, he can still manage to smile!!
Oh, and amazingly enough, Charlie the fish - he survived the attack. As of today he is in a much more forehead-friendly bowl.
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