We're beginning to think that Little S is thin-skinned. His skin seems to be made of paper. He spends half the time looking like a prize fighter. His stumbles are legendary.On Saturday I was baby free so I did what every liberated mother does when handed a weekend pass, I went grocery shopping. I came home a leisure two hours later and Seb was in the kitchen completely panic stricken. He was cradling Little S in his arms and mumbling "putain, pas encore!" over and over. This was Seb in crisis mode, completely crippled and inutile. There was blood all over the place, on both their clothes and on the floor and Little S was sobbing and saying bo-bo!, bo-bo! over and over and pointing to his eye. He had, I discovered, fallen in the street outside and landed awkwardly against a piece of wood stacked for construction. Just below his eyebrow and too close to his eye for comfort the skin was gashed wide open and you could actually see the layers of separated skin. My gut suddenly churned. My baby was in pain and there wasn't anything immediate to do but try to think and I didn't feel straight headed enough to do that. Finally I screamed at Seb "go get the carnet de santé in the cupboard upstairs and bring me his shoes!" I don't usually scream at Seb but I was completely possessed by the spirit of the crisis and that mother bear instinct I'd known a few months earlier with the car window incident. Something just took over. While Seb followed orders I held my small, shaky, bundle close to my chest and he latched on firm and hard like a little a little primate, something he only does when hurt or scared.
We took him to the emergency room where if it were a bar we'd be the ones with regular bar stools and a personalized mug behind the counter for each of us. I've been there four times, Seb's been there three times and Little S was on his second visit. The woman behind the counter smirked a little when she pulled up our family name and address on the computer. "Wait over there please." she said for probably the hundredth time that day. "Can we go in the room with the toy chest?" I asked. "No that room's closed today, sorry." I sulked. We'd have to entertain our slashed up, freaked out toddler for two hours in a waiting room full of grouchy adults in pain.
And yes we waited. We waited a good two hours. Fortunately though a few minutes after we got there a toddler Little S's age came in with the exact same bo-bo and let me tell you Little S was impressed. Something clicked in his mind like "wow this is where you come for the hurt eye bo-bo!" It was funny to watch them study each other's bloody faces and then run and play together. The other little boy had a very minor version of Little S's gash and I was surprised that the mother even brought him in at all. She had a portable first aid kit with her and kept swabbing his head with various gauze pads and sprays. Meanwhile I kept having to steal Kleenex from the front desk because Little S was leaving a blood trail all through the waiting room and some strange clear liquid was oozing out of the gash. Oh alas, ever the careful, concerned mother. That's just me.
Fortunately for us the doctors gave us the option of stitches or glue and we got to choose the glue this time, whew! We were very relieved because last time was horrible. Little S was scared but brave and only shed two or three tears.
Two days later and you can barely see the gash. The glue works very well as you can see in the picture above. I just hope the poor guy won't have a scar.
update: The glue although maybe quick and painless compared to stitches was not very sanitary and his eye puffed out full of pus for at least a week. It also ate the hair on his eyebrow! He is missing half an eyebrow and he looks very strange.
