Having 4 boys in the house (not including their injury-prone Father) we fully expect to spend hours at hospitals and doctors surgeries. I'm constantly surprised and amazed that we haven't spent more time in actual fact. I am also aware that that last sentence was probably tempting fate... In the past we have had 3 broken collar bones (2 for the same boy), 2 broken wrists, one super-glued finger (from cycling no-handedly into the back of a parked vehicle - doh), one super-glued head (the result of a game involving bunk-beds and a door) not to mention Daddy's various fractured wrists, thumbs and ankles and torn ligaments and muscles. Recently we've had a couple of beauties that I thought I would share with you!
The first one occurred the day after Archie's birthday. I had gone to the movies with a couple of friends and John had taken Archie, sans freres, to the football. All younger sibs had been duly deposited at our lovely neighbours' house for the hour or so that our activities overlapped. Within half an hour, I had a phone call to say that Robert had had a fall and had a nasty cut on his eye. There had been debate about stitches but the consensus was that it would probably be ok. I tried to get hold of John as I was car less but took the decision to trust that everyone else could manage without me! Long story short, when I got home, John had spent most of the evening with 5 kids at A&E and had eventually been sent home with an appointment for the Out of Hours GP Access for about 10.45pm. So I trotted up with a sleepy wee boy and was told that thankfully there were no stitches or super glue required and that butterfly stitches would do the job. As the swelling went down it looked a lot less scary and while he will have a scar, it's nowhere near as awful as it could have been if it had been an inch higher.
The next one involved the trampoline, again it's no small miracle that there haven't been more trampoline-related dramas! They had been practising their back-flips and somehow Archie's head connected with one of the poles that used to hold the net. Some of you may remember the cartoon-style lump on Joseph's head at our leaving do, well this was very similar! He has long hair which covers the area, but it actually stuck out through! To be honest I think the trampoline came off worst as the little clip that connects the pole has been comprehensively wrecked due to the force of his skull!
And last but not least, I had a phone call from the boys' school on Tuesday to say that Jonathan had had a fall and had gashed his knee on a nail, could I come and have a look? I asked if they couldn't just put a plaster on it and send him back to class?! Apparently the office staff are allowed to do nothing at all to cuts and needed me to check and deal with. When I got there, he and 2 of his "witnesses" (ie class-mates having a wee skive) were keeping the ladies amused with their ever more dramatic recounts of the incident! The word "Tetanus" was bandied about a bit so we duly went off in search of a GP that could fit him in. 2 hours, and a lovely tetanus jab later, he got back to school with a rather disappointing looking graze. I wish I had taken a 'before' pic as it did look gruesome before all the gouged skin was cut off!
This was the knee at the doctors again this afternoon after 2 days under wraps and heavy duty potions. I'm hoping that the offending nails on the verandah have now been hammered back in...
Well, I guess it's now a case of placing bets as to who/what will be next!
Have a safe evening!
