Flametoad

Let me tell you about the accident. It happened during my blogging hiatus. It was a Sunday night, right around 8 pm. We’d had a long, full weekend and I was looking forward to getting the kids to bed and having an hour or two to myself before bedtime. The weather was pleasant, and we’d actually opened the windows to take advantage of the fresh air. (This doesn’t happen too often in Texas weather.) Mrs. Flametoad had just called Tadpole 1 to the bath, and I was supposed to be bringing Tadpole 2.

Before going to the kids’ bathroom, I went from room to room closing windows. Tadpole 2 followed faithfully behind. The master bath window posed the usual challenge. For some reason that I still fail to comprehend, there is a shelf in the middle of the window. To open or close the window, you have to push the window up or down behind the shelf. On this shelf was a 5×7 framed photo. Yes, was.

As I pulled down on the window, I managed to knock over the photo frame, which in turn hit me on the bridge of my nose. The strike to my face was just enough force to pop the protective glass from the frame and send it spinning down… right to Tadpole 2’s head.

In my surprise and all the subsequent excitement, I don’t know if the glass broke on her head or after. I did get one quick glance at her scalp and saw a white line extending for maybe an inch and a half. The white line was quickly replaced with red and surprise gave way to screams. In the instant I had to assess the situation, I already knew that I would be taking her to the ER for stitches. I snatched her up and ran to the hall bathroom where Mrs. Flametoad was bathing Tadpole 1. If you have any familiarity with scalp wounds, you know they bleed like crazy. By the time I reached Mrs. Flametoad–maybe 10 seconds after impact–blood was pouring down Tadpole 2’s face.

We traded kids, and Mrs. Flametoad worked on a wet towel with which to apply direct pressure, while I got Tadpole 1 out of the bathtub and into pajamas in record time. I rushed him next door to the neighbors while Mrs. Flametoad loaded our injured 2 year old in the truck. I met them in the driveway and off we went!

I’ll save you the rest of the minutia. We’re extremely grateful to Jennifer for getting Tadpole 1 from the neighbors, back home, and into bed. Tadpole 2 came home with two staples and 2 stitches. It wasn’t a huge cut, but definitely something needing patching up. Being in the scalp, we couldn’t exactly put a bandage on it. The photo was taken from my camera phone while we were in the waiting room of the ER. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have documentation in case there was a dispute with the hospital. This was after we’d tried to clean her up.

Yes, the entire experience was heartbreaking.

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. The staples and stitches are out and Tadpole 2 has a clean bill of health. Other than a spot where they snipped out the bloody, crusted swatch of hair to get to the wound, it’s like it never happened.

We have taken that shelf down.

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