Friday was definitely a day I don’t wish to re-live. The day started out relatively normal with Eli waking up at his usual time of 5 am so I spent about an hour snuggling with him on the couch in hopes he would go back to sleep for me. I managed to about an hour of sleep in before Kurt left for work and Nate got up. It seemed like it was going to be a perfect- almost Fall- day. The temperature was supposed to be in the high teens so I had plans to get myself showered and ready then take the boys to the park downtown. I figured Nate had been cooped up in the house for a few days because Eli had been super cranky so it would be nice to get him outside let him burn off some energy. I had already told Nate where we were headed prior to me getting myself ready and he was pretty pumped. I kept hearing him ask “Park? Mom? Park!?” for about an hour while I was tidying the house up. Finally, around 9:45 am I told Nate I was just running upstairs to get him and Eli some clothes and I would be back down in a second. I was upstairs for no more than two minutes when I hear a massive crash followed by Nate screaming and then crying. I raced downstairs unsure of what happened and the whole time I was calling out to him asking if he was o.k.

I found him standing beside the couch crying and holding the top of his head. I asked if he was alright and he informed me “I o.k.” From what I could tell he had been watching videos on Kurt’s old phone and was most likely leaning over the couch sliding his feet under the rug (something I have told him not to do a thousand times) and because he had socks on, slipped and hit his head. At first I was kinda pissed at him since before I went upstairs I just told him to sit on the couch properly because he was going to slip and fall. I asked him “Were you doing what Mommy told you not to do?” and he told me yes. I then replied with “Well, that’s what happens when you don’t listen to Mommy”. He said he was sorry for not listening and asked if he could go back to watching his video. Since I was planning on getting Eli dressed first, I told Nate to go ahead and that I would be with him in a few minutes. I gave him a kiss and he turned around to go back to the couch. That’s when I saw all the blood on the back of his shirt. Immediately I started freaking out and grabbed his arm to keep him in place. After frantically searching, I found a small but actively bleeding laceration to the back of his head. Now, I’m a nurse so I don’t often panic when Nate hurts himself because let’s face it, kids are pretty resilient. And In fact, there’s only been a total of four times (this one included) in his three years on this Earth that I’ve actually thought he was really hurt. I assessed his head and even though the bleeding had started to slow down and the length of the laceration itself was small, the width of it was what concerned me.

Everything in me was saying to take him to the hospital so off we went; Nate, Eli, and myself to the closest emergency room. Poor Nate was convinced we were going to the park and kept saying “I pay (play) at park! Yayyy!” I felt so bad breaking it to him that we no longer going to be able to go to the park because he had to see the doctor for his head. Of course, this also had to happen on a Friday so I was alone with two kids, one of which is a rambunctious little boy and the other is a gassy and often cranky infant and to make matters worse, the emergency room was SLAMMED. I literally got the last parking spot in the emerge section and almost every seat was taken in the waiting room. I won’t go into details of the hours long wait but let’s just say I was thanking God for YouTube videos because I’m not sure we would have survived that wait without it. Kurt was working in a prison for the day so when he was finally able to check his phone, we’d already been waiting in the emerge for two and a half hours. He raced over to meet us and we waited another two hours before being called to the back and then another 30 minutes before the doctor finally saw us. The doctor determined that Nate wouldn’t allow her to put in any sutures since he would barely tolerate her touching his head so she ended up using some strands of his hair, tying them in a knot over the laceration, then placing several dabs of glue over the knot.

After a total of five hours and my whole day spent in a waiting room, we were finally free. Of course the glue hurt just as bad as the fall itself so Nate was in hysterics when we got him into his car seat. It broke our hearts seeing him grabbing at his head and yelling “I hurt! I hurt!” so Kurt and I decided to get him some treats. We headed to Bulk Barn and let him pick out whatever candy(ies) he wanted then we headed home for some much needed couch snuggles and cuddles. By the time we got home and my sister came over, you wouldn’t have even known how his day went. Nate was back to his usual happy-go-lucky self, running around the house laughing and playing. He definitely got spoiled by my mom, sister, and step-sister over the weekend because of this little accident.

Kurt and I were still feeling sorry for Nate Saturday morning although truth be told, he wasn’t phased by his head at all but that didn’t stop us from wanting to do something special for him. We decided we would take him to a fair that was going on about 40 minutes from our home. What I love most about small towns, are the fairs, especially the Fall ones. There’s so much to do and see and the weather is absolutely perfect because it’s not too hot and not too cold. I underestimated just how many people go to this fair. I kind of assumed it would be relatively small and maybe have a few rides and games but I was pleasantly surprised. There were tons of rides, games, food vendors, farm animals, tractors, pony rides, and probably much, much more that we didn’t get a chance to see. Nate’s favourite part of the fair was definitely going on all the rides. He’s at the age now where he’ll go on them by himself (if he’s tall enough) and not cry when the ride is over. Last year, at our town’s fair every time a ride ended, he would burst into tears and throw a tantrum when we tried to take him off so it was nice to see how much he truly has grown up this past year. We bought him 18 tickets and he was able to do tons of rides on his own. I think I only had to accompany him on one which was like an obstacle course/maze type thing. We spent about four hours there and thanks to the nap Nate took on route to the fair, we made it through the afternoon with no temper tantrums… Well, almost none. We let him play the ‘pick a duck and win a prize’ game and he didn’t seem to understand that the ducks weren’t actually the prize. He just wanted to keep picking them out of the water so note to self, at the next fair just ask if he can pick up some ducks and not actually pay the $5 it costs to play because he doesn’t care about prizes. Haha!

Here are a few shots of our big, brave boy having a blast at the fair!

Our town’s Fall fair is this upcoming weekend so I’m really looking forward to having another afternoon this like one!