In which one child pops open but gets stuck back together

Our family spent last week on a trip to Park City here in Utah.  We try to go on some sort of vacation every summer so that we can spend time together away from other distractions and build (hopefully) a solid wall of good family memories that will bind us together.

The "here is all the fun we had on our trip" post is coming, but not today.

Anyway, while we were in Park City we had an unexpected adventure.  Last Monday we put the three youngest kids to bed just after 8:00 pm (their normal bedtime -- we don't want grumpy kids while we're supposed to be having fun).  We heard Gavin and Logan in their room tittering and whispering back and forth.  We sort of ignored it because we were on vacation and didn't want to be our regular ogre selves about bedtime, we knew they would fall asleep soon.

Only they didn't.

Instead the room exploded in screaming.

Josh and I scurried to the doorway to find our four year old desperately wailing while plugging a gushing head wound with both hands (head wounds tend to bleed pretty nastily so it wasn't quite as bad as it first seemed).

We took him to the bathroom and calmed him down and cleaned him up (while I can be squeamish about needles I am AWESOME in an emergency and Josh is not squeamish ever so he is even better).  We could get the bleeding to slow,but not stop and the gash in Logan's head was more than just a little cut. 

We debated back and forth whether to just tape up his head or to take him in and have it stitched.  It wasn't horribly deep, but we were on vacation and planning to do lot of hiking, playing, swimming and Logan (the 4-year-old) is not known for his quiet and relaxed composure.  We finally agreed to have Josh take him to the Instacare to have him checked out.  It was just after 8:30 when they left the condo.  Logan was terrified and tightly clutching a cool cloth to his little bit gaping wound.

(Poor baby all nervous and hurting...man that cut looks like
NOTHING in the picture.)

Soon after my two guys left Gavin came out of his room in tears.  He was agonizing about his little brother.  Turns out that Gavin and Logan were quietly wrestling on the bed when Gavin accidentally tipped Logan off and Logan smashed into the bed side table leaving him oozing blood and screaming.  Gavin was terrified that his actions had permanently damaged his baby brother and that Logan would die and never come home to us.

Oh, my sweetheart.  I scooped him up and did my best to reassure him that Logan would almost certainly not die from him injuries and he would be home soon.  Gavin begged me to wake him up when Logan got back so that he could be sure Logan was ok after all.  I promised I would and I did, but Gavin was so exhausted that even though I dragged him out of bed to see Logan he didn't remember it the next morning and gave me a Scotch blessing for not keeping my promise (which I quickly nipped because I did so keep my promise!).

About 11:30 pm Josh called to let me know they were on their way back.  Come to find out the only Instacare in Park City closes at 8:00 pm so we missed it which meant Josh and Logan ended up in the ER.  That was not quite what we had in mind ($200 copay vs $35 copay for a gash that we weren't sure needed to be stitched in the first place).

The fabulous ER nurse had worked at Primary Children's Medical Center for more than a dozen years before transferring to Park City so she was amazing with our little guy.  Josh also was also a sweet hero for our scared little man who was incredibly brave and made us both very proud. 

One bonus to the ER is that they could give him his awesome anesthetic administered through the nose that left him higher than a kite.  Have you ever seen a completely stoned four year old?  Well, I hadn't really before, but let me tell you it is definitely entertaining.  I think Josh has some video on his phone so I'll try to put that up sometime soon.

This kind lady reassured us that having his head stitched was absolutely the right thing to do because he is a 4-year-old boy and would most likely bang into something and split his head even more (and he did mash head first into a post the next day while we were hiking to Stewart Falls so we felt better that he was all sewn up).

Long story short, Logan ended up with a couple stitches in his forehead and a very drugged smile on his face.  Boy oh boy he slept well that night. 

We had another doctor visit a few days later to have the stitches removed and the pediatrician agreed with the fabulous ER nurse that it was the right choice to have him stitched up (nice of them both to soothe our $200 uncertainties). 

And now Logan is all back together again.  Hooray!  But what an adventure we had. Logan did use his injury to his advantage whenever he could siting fake aches when he wanted more ice cream or when he wanted his siblings to let him win a game.  Yeah, he knows how to work it.  Silly kid, but we adore him.