Sunday, November 21, 2010

Brave and Not So Much

I have a 5-year-old daughter who is very, very brave.

This afternoon she was standing on a stool in front of the window awaiting the arrival of some dear friends when the stool slipped and she flew off with her feet going high into the air and landed on her chin, splitting it open.

Yes, she cried.
Yes, she panicked when she saw blood.
Yes, she cried even harder when Grady ran and brought her some Barbie bandaids and an ice pack to fix the hole in her chin.
Yes, she cried the whole way to the hospital while holding a washcloth to her chin to stop the flow of blood.
Yes, she panicked when she heard she was going to get stitches and asked if they were going to use a sewing machine on her face.

But when those saintly ER nurses started asking her how old she is and if she's in kindergarten and if she has her driver's license yet, the tears stopped flowing and she was able to tell them all about her life. And how she fell. And ask if they had pretty bandaids.

Then the ER doc came in, and with Dylan and me holding her still, he stitched Emma up while she asked him questions about what he was doing and told him if what he was doing hurt her or not and asked how many more minutes it would be until he was all done and what color of thread he was using.

As soon as the doc finished with his 4 stitches and my very brave 5-year-old sat up, Dylan announced that he wasn't feeling so well. Immediately the doctor had him lay down on the bed and a nurse hurried in to ask if he needed some water or anything. Never mind that it wasn't his chin bleeding all over the place or getting sewn back together with ugly black whiskery thread. The nurse explained that it was very common for male patients to get woozy from the sight of blood and that what Dylan was experiencing was totally normal. Whatever. He's seen 3 live births and that was a LOT more graphic than 4 measly little stitches.

Anyway, once Dylan was feeling better, we checked out of the ER and took Emma straight to Yogurt Park, even though she hadn't had dinner yet. She even got to pick out 2 toppings for her pink frozen yogurt, since she was so brave. Dylan didn't get any.





5 comments:

sunsfromsanfrancisco said...

Tell her the Suns say, "Way to go!". :)

The Pints said...

Wow - you're such a brave girl, Emma Joy!

Joel Flory said...

I can't stop laughing at the thought of hearing & seeing dylan in that situation. Way to go Emma, you are extremely brave.

mima said...

Gary did the same thing when Curtis had his "little surgery" as an infant.

We are the Ganyos.... said...

It makes me laugh thinking of Dylan, mountain man himself, struggling with the blood and gore. I am continuously amazed, every time we head to the ER, how brave little ones can actually be in the face of injury. Good job Emma! BTW, I feel she should have earned 4 topping on her yogurt. In our family, you get as many scoops of ice cream as you had stitches. We are kind of gluttonous though.