William's first stitches.

Yes I know it's been a while. I'm only going to update this blog when William does something I feel like writing about from now on anyway.

Like his first stitches.

Last night I had just tucked William into bed around 8:30 when he inquires "Can you get me some water daddy?" With a "Sure thing" I took his cup and made it to the bathroom and back to his room without spilling a drop of water or blood. The same could not be said for my little speedster. He had hopped out of bed to follow me, and as I had turned around he did too and, trying to get to his bed before I did, tripped and came face first with the edge of his wooden bedframe.

And now fast forward to the emergency room.

He had a pretty good gash, and like any good face wound it bled and bled and bled all the way there, then stopped severely bleeding as soon as we walked in the door. William, calmed down a little, was a trooper through and through. I told him to look for words and to ask me what they said. As half an hour turned into an hour I told him a story to keep his mind off his busted lip, and he told me a story about the same thing I had just told him a story about. I also regaled him with tales of his mother and my own encounters with stitches.

Que 9:30. We were called in so that a nurse could assess how big of an emergency our emergency was. He was given emergency #4, and no, I don't mean he was 4th in line, I mean if you had a big list of 1 being "They're going to die" and 5 being "just walk it off" he was a 4, and the line for 4's was over an hour long.

William stayed tough through it all. Never crying. Never saying it hurt, even when we asked. (He did throw quite a fit when he was initially wounded I should mention. Lots of crying.) He played a game based on Disney's 'Frozen' on his mom's tablet and colored on a folder with a highlighter. Come 10:45, when we were called into the operating room, he was feeling energetic about everything.

11:30 struck and a charismatic doctor came in, explained what he was going to do, and turned to leave. Before he could I asked him to tell William what he just told us, that he deserved to know what was coming up. The doctor explained the best he could, and although William didn't understand I hope that he felt calmed by the fact he was involved. For the remainder of the night I always asked the doctors to tell William everything they were doing, and told William to ask any questions that came to his mind. A nurse came in and applied a numbing agent to his lips, and then gave him some coloring pages along with some crayons. That small act did wonders at keeping him occupied, and I can't thank her enough.

12:30. Tired. Doctor comes in, asks if it's been half an hour. Yup.

1 AM. Nurse who brought crayons in comes in and says she needs to wrap William up like a burrito so he can't move his hands. William very much enjoyed being a tex-mex menu option.

1:15 and the real work begins. Two doctors come in, one to do stitches, the other to hold William's head. Apparently kids are real screamers when they see a guy jamming a needle into their face and they can't feel it. Not William though. Oh no. Before anything started he was talking up a storm about burritos, and how he was a sandwich burrito, and how he had potatoes inside him.

The doctors all said he was the "Chillest kid they've ever seen". They applied a needle to add more numbing agent to the lip, and from there William lay still, watching as the doctor sewed his lip shut. The only time he even talked was to correct us on the fact he had gone fishing with his Uncle Will, not his Aunt TeeTee. 4 stitches in and the doctor in charge of holding his head gave up and said "Well, I'm not needed here." and left the room. 6 stitches in William was asleep. According to the doctors that was the first time a little kid had ever not moved, and the first time they'd fallen asleep on the table. 7 stitches and he was done.

At 1:30. We had to wait till 2 to go home due to paperwork.

Flash to this morning? His first words after looking in the mirror were "I like my stitches."