Are you Freaking KIDDING ME??

It was 11:30 p.m.

I was downstairs.

Doing what I always do at night...clean up all the crap we got out during the day.

When I hear a loud thud.

I knew what it was.  

This has happened before (click here to see how it happened before!)

So I know that sound well.

Then there is the scream.

I race up the stairs to find Claire on the floor next to the bed.

I do a quick scan of her head (sadly, I always immediately perform this step...too often I find blood).

And there it is...

Her right eyebrow split wide open.

Just a few months ago, she split her left one open (click here to see how her left one split open!)

Called Jordan.

Called my father-in-law. (to sit at the house while Anya slept.)

Went to the ER.

AGAIN.

(Except this time, our insurance is worse, so it cost $50 more...)

*LOOOOOONNNNNGGGG SIGH*

Here is is, pre-stitches.  YIKES!!!  (Like the wad of gum in her cheek?  We were running out of ideas on keeping ourselves entertained.  She LOVED watching us blow bubbles and especially when Jordan popped one on his face, all over his "scratchies!" (whiskers).  She just laughed and laughed).

The upside is:  Claire was an absolute angel.

The downside is:  It was so bad, a plastic surgeon had to be called.

The upside is:  Claire was really brave.

The downside is:  She had to have like 6 shots of the numbing solution in her "owie"

The upside is:  She was very numb.

The downside is:  We were there for 5 hours.

The upside is:  HOLY COW.  I'm always calling the plastic surgeon.  He was amazing!!  He did a running stitch including some dissolvable stitches inside and an amazing blind stitch on the outside. (I asked him if he'd blind stitch my quilt bindings from now on)

The downside is:  Stitches will be in for 3 weeks or more.  We have family pictures in two.  Good thing for Photoshop!!
The upside is:  Claire held so still, closing her eyes, she was acting more like she was getting a spa treatment done than getting stitches applied.
The downside is:  Claire was wearing cow PJ's that are like 10 sizes too small and her hair looked like a grease pit since she'd put lotion in it earlier.
The upside is:  Nobody cared.  (except for me lol)

The downside is:  We felt like really horrible parents throughout.  STUPID nightstand!!!

The upside is:  They didn't call in Child Protective Services to handcuff and haul us away...

The downside is:  The nurse actually ASKED if we had given her some kind of sedative, she was so calm! LOL! (might have to do with this being her 4th time getting stitches...it's old hat around here)

The upside is:  They were stitching up her eyebrow...not her eyeBALL.  This could all have been worse.

All in all, a very eventful evening.  She was a trooper, and has since had fun pretend stitching up her cousin, Lauren, and Mommy and Daddy too, of course.

Some more pictures from Jordan's phone:

With the numbing stuff on it.  She was pretty happy :)

And was excited to have a bracelet on her leg!

A little blurry.  She was moving waaay too much.  The plastic surgeon put Iodine all over that side of her face, but then removed it after he was done.  But he put some on her nose so that when she'd look in the mirror for the first time, she'd look at that and not be too shocked over the stitches (let's be honest, this girl wouldn't be...).  Thought that was cute!  He was an old man that was so amazing at his job.  It is impeccable!  The steri strips are above her eyebrow because they are holding the dissolvable and the regular stitch ends so that he wouldn't pull the skin by tying them.

The doctor had me tell her a couple of princess stories while he did the stitching.  The nurse was so funny.  She was like, "You need to publish those!"  I was like, seriously.  Dumbest "plots" known to man.  Haha! I'm no JK Rowling!  But I guess good enough for a 2 year old.  The doctor actually did tell us that he could tell that we are very good parents and that we are very very good with her.  I thought that was nice.  Much to our expecting-to-be-chastened surprise that night :)

Ooops she did it again.

But at least it was during "normal business hours" and we got to go to the Instacare instead of the ER!!

So, Jordan gets these disposable scalpels at his work.  We have a bunch around the house.  They are SO USEFUL.  Claire has never really paid attention to them, much less tried to use them.  Until last Wednesday.

I was upstairs getting Anya from her crib and I hear Claire screaming and crying.  I run to the top of the stairs and Claire is covered in blood!!  It was so sad!!!  And terrifying!!  She had gotten a hold of a disposable scalpel (it's like a super sharp exacto knife) and cut her palm...deeply with it.

Anyway, off we went to the Instacare.  She was very calm and...normal. I thought she'd be more light-headed and lethargic, to be honest.

So, the cut coagulated pretty fast, so that was good, and the nurse (we totally know him from all of our Instacare visits in the past, actually...Anya mostly) put some numbing gel on it and then we waited half an hr. to be seen.

Once we were seen, another nurse flushed the cut, and Claire did great.  She just said it felt cold, but didn't hurt.  Then, the doctor came in.  I tried to have Claire just look at me and not at the cut as they started stitching her up.  But once they started, Claire began screaming because it wasn't numb enough.  So that required a shot.  NOT fun, but she was brave and believed me when I told her that after the shot was over, it wouldn't hurt any more.

And it didn't.  At that point, I had her singing her ABC's to me and Twinkle Twinkle while the doctor began stitching.  But then I started feeling light-headed and needed to put my head between my legs.  At that point, Claire started watching them stitch her hand together!!  She was TOTALLY OK with it too!!  Hey, once it stopped hurting, she was all about watching what was going on.  The doctor was even like, "So Claire, do you want to be a doctor someday and help people?" And Claire said, "Yeah, just like you!"

Now Claire keeps saying that when she "grows big and strong" she will be a "doctor, and fix little people and baby Anya."  I hope she's not eluding to any future injuries she may cause her sister, lol!

She was so adorable for the doctor and nurse. (btw Dr. was female, nurse was male lol)  They were eating it UP!  She was so brave too, holy cow!  I love my little monkey.  This was by far the worst Mom moment for me though.  The other two ER experiences I felt were out of my hands.  This time, I was the one who had left the scalpel out (it had a sheath on it, but still!) after cutting a tag off a teddy bear for Claire... so I feel pretty responsible.  *sigh*...

Well, I guess that's just life. She's now at 2 staples in the head, 5 stitches in the head, and 5 stitches in her hand.  And she's only 2.5 yrs. old.  Crazy!

Birthday Girl

So, we celebrated Anya's First on Sunday (It was officially on Thursday). And, I of course wanted to take some pictures of her, and so we did! But we just did it in my in-laws' back yard with a random chair from my house (since she doesn't yet stand by herself) etc. etc. so nothing fancy, but I played a lot with some new Photoshop actions :)
So of course, Claire wanted in on the action. Here she is in her favorite "outfit." Yeah...
And here's the CAKE!!! It was a snickerdoodle cake with brown sugar buttercream. Yum :) It would have been so cute pink and all, but I selfishly wanted to try out this cake I found on Pinterest, of course ;)
Did you see the SIDES of the cake???? Natalie taught me a trick using a spray bottle...and she brought her roatating cake thing and taught me how to frost like a PRO!!