The Green Toy Gun

Friday was an exciting day. New Moon was out and I planned to watch it with a bunch of cousins, sisters, brothers, & my mom--we bought our tickets way in advance. Papo agreed to babysit Miles, Dengs, and Aunty Helen was bringing Aaron & Andre over too. Anyway, I felt a little anxious, when I was at the theater but ignored it, thinking maybe I was just excited about the movie? There was a scene in New Moon, where Bella gets cut by glass and gets stitched by Dr. Cullen. During that scene, Awts tells me that she's done sutures and has sewn people up at her past residency and I was thinking, "wow, that's impressive and a good skill to have." Anyway, the movie ends, we're all talking about it, on our way home, and while I was suppose to just get dropped off back to my house, I had a hunch that maybe I needed to go back to my parent's house to check on Miles. And it's a good thing I did follow that instinct.

When I got there, I learned that he got hurt. The kids were playing, he just so happened to be at the bottom of the stairs and one of the boys threw down a green toy gun and Miles got hit smack in the forehead. I just wanted to go home to take a look at what was underneath the band aid, to clean it up and go from there. Sure enough, it looked pretty bad and Awts confirmed that yes, he needed some stitching! I was horrified! I mean, this was the first time Miles ever got hurt like that. I know every experienced parent will say, "those things happen..." "boys will be boys..."..."get use to it..." But yo, it was one of those moments as a parent where you're just plain scared when something like that happens. I called Justin at work so he could come home and bring us to the ER.

I don't know how I will be a nurse when I don't even like being in the hospital. I'd like to avoid taking Miles there if at all possible with h1n1 and all kinds of deadly bacterial organisms being rampant. It was 1:30 am by the time we got there. Miles was pretty nervous about what was going to happen. When the nurses and doctors asked him what happened, he said, "A gun fell on my head!" And I got some dirty looks! While it took what seemed like forever, he was pretty patient and cooperative with the doctor. Luckily, she was really good with him and wanted to avoid the trauma of being strapped down & stitched so she used dermabond aka people glue. Miles wanted to understand what she was doing and she told him, "we have to put your forehead together again just like humpty dumpty when he fell of his wall." By the time we left it was about 5 am and he was surprisingly still happy. Maybe it was cause he got a new bear, Charlie, and a coloring book from the nurses.

Moral of the story: Always listen to your motherly (or fatherly) instinct and intuition. I'm so glad that I decided to check on him after the movie--not something I usually do, trusting that he's OK.

Yesterday Miles remembered that the green toy gun that fell on his head was the same toy he had screamed his head off for at the county fair during the summer (Aunty Xtina, I'm sure you remember!). While we didn't buy it, his Aunty Jen got it for him--he said, "I don't know why I wanted that toy gun mommy. I don't know why I cried for it so much. I'm not going to get a toy gun again." Amen! I thought it was pretty reflective, how he was connecting that memory and his emotions then to his trauma with it Friday night. Miles will remember this as we all did when we were kids, getting hurt for the first time and having to go to the ER (or not!). Plus, he'll have his battle scar as a remembrance. That scar will always remind me to pay attention to my intuition!

But the playing must go on!







He's just fine, especially when he's hanging with his BFF, Dengs :)