ouch

i've been thankful to have a careful little boy who never gets too out of control and is usually too scared to try the dare devil antics of his peer group.  but just because you're not a dare devil doesn't mean that you never get hurt (much to a mother's chagrin).  last night when my parents were over, ben was down in the garage with tim "working on the bikes" (a favourite activity around here) when suddenly tim is at the door with ben screaming.  i looked down the stairs and all i could see is tim carefully holding ben's hand to catch the pooling blood.  AUGH!  i refrained from screaming myself and instead got a wet paper towel.  thankfully, he wasn't missing any fingers or anything - just a fairly deep cut...and a ton of blood. i felt so panicked and wondered if he needed to go to emergency or something but i managed to keep a calm exterior in order to not freak ben out.  he was freaked out enough as it was.  he didn't like us holding his finger with a paper towel so he'd pull it away, look at the terrible looking cut, and then say, "oh no!" and burst into tears again.  he was so sweet though - when my dad offered to read him a book, he stuttered "no, thankyou" through his tears. i tried putting a bandaid on it (to which ben said, "thank you mommy") but it just bled through in minutes.  we were made acutely aware of our lack of first aid kits in the house when tim finally had to go down into his hiking stuff and find his first aid kit that he takes backpacking.  unfortunately, having a first aid kit doesn't mean that you know what to do with it.  ;) tim put some gauze on the cut and taped it up.  the bleeding stopped and we were able to distract ben with a "grown up game" (one of our board games) and an episode of calliou.  in fact, after awhile, he pointed at his bandaged finger and said, "i'm having fun with this."  haha.

when uncle matt came over for dinner, he had a look at it, cleaned it out (while ben screamed), and bandaged it up.  ben seemed to be fine.  it helped that it was just a pinky on his left hand - doesn't really get in the way that much.  and this morning, seemed fine again.

his giant bandage

this afternoon, we went to the walk in clinic to get a better bandage on it and have a doctor double check that it was clean and everything.  as you know, ben doesn't have a great repport  with doctors.  he asked to see our dr. d but i explained that he was too far away to go there today.   i was nervous to be there with two kids - i had to hold avery so how was i going to hold ben if he melted down?  we sat in the waiting room at the clinic for an hour until we were finally called.  up to this point, he'd done pretty well.  we get into the little room and there's a poster on the wall showing the insides of your ear, face, and throat and i remembered that there's a poster like that in the room at dr. d's office so when i saw ben looking nervously at it, i told him what it was.  i explained that this is what it looks like inside all these parts and he seemed okay with the poster after that.  i told ben that after he was done with the doctor, i had a lollipop for him in my bag.  then doctor came in.  this sounds rude but he would probably admit himself that he's a bit of a scary looking dude.  some scarring on his face and his nose seems to be missing a chunk...but he's very kind.  he said, "so this is benjamin?" and ben's lower lip trembled a little.  he asked, "how old are you, ben?" and ben was happy to say "i'm 2."  then ben said, "i have no more soothers when i turn 3."  which was gibberish to the doctor so i interpreted.  the doctor thought the finger looked fine (whereas i gasped audibly when i saw it again) so he cleaned it and put steri-strips (teeny tiny sticky strips) all over the wound.

ben. never. cried. at. all.   AT ALL!  it was amazing!  i was so proud of him.  when he was finished, i handed him his lollipop before we even left the office.  it was well deserved.

the kids in the waiting room -
yes, i let them play with the toys...we were there OVER AN HOUR!

as of tuesday morning
(yes, that's tim's mountain biking helmet)

close up - already the strips are starting to peel away!  augh!