There was a rambunctious dog involved

“How fast can you get home?”

I hate phone calls that start like that. I was driving my father back to my brother’s after he spent the weekend at my house. Sassy, whom I often refer to as “The Informer”, had called me about five minutes prior. Her story didn’t make sense – as they so often don’t – and I cut her off.

“Did Daddy tell you to call me or did you take it upon yourself to it?”

She made annoyed huffing sounds – something else I’m entirely used to – and hung up. I wasn’t too worried. However, when my phone rang again just a few minutes later, it was My Honey’s number, and my interest ratcheted up a bit.

“How fast can you get home?” he asked.

“Stitches?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

My brother lives way out on the edge of town and I live pretty much in the middle of it. I got home in record time.

I found my family all laying on my bed watching TV. There was a definite hole in my boy’s knee. It sorta gaped and you could see a good portion of meat in there. Ick, right?

So off to the Children’s Emergency room at the hospital down the street from us. The same hospital Sassy had her chin stitched up when she was almost 3. The Bandit was NOT excited about going. At all. He also wasn’t impressed with my fascination with the oozing and nifty gaping quality.

They got us right into a room and a nurse came along super quick and got him dosed up with lidocaine. We determined that he had on underwear which is a victory in and of itself. There was no ruling on the cleanliness of said underwear as prescribed by every mother when visiting the hospital, but we took the small victory. While we waited we passed the time playing cards. For some reason, My Honey thought it would be a great idea to teach the kids poker. So we played Five Card Stud with Winnie the Pooh mini cards Sassy had in her purse. That seems wrong, right? I told the kids what hands to play and pretty soon Daddy was down $7. This does not bode well for our trip to Laughlin next month.

When the doctor came in with the suture kit, the boy grew anxious. Understandable since he’d never been in this position before. His father and I assured him that chicks dig scars, but 8-year old boys are very shortsighted where this is concerned. He and I tried to concentrate on an iPad while the actual stitching was happening, but still there was flinching. Actually, he did pretty well, all things considered – no crying or serious fit throwing. Victory.

The things I do for blog topics.