Wednesday, December 15th, at 10:30, Judah received 6 stitches on his forehead. Here's the story, as I know it.
I had neglected to clean my house for two weeks, because Rusty was totally absent due to his 12 hours of graduate level classes coming to an end. Something had to give, and it was the cleanliness of my home. Rusty's last final was scheduled for 9 AM Wednesday morning, so we had made plans to do major housecleaning during nap time, that day. In order to do that, I needed to get the bedrooms cleaned so that while the boys slept, we could clean the rest. This means that I had to do a certain amount of cleaning while they were awake. Rusty left to do some last minute cramming for his final at about 8 AM. I did one bedroom while they were in their highchairs for breakfast (8:30ish), and the second while they were playing in the living room with their toys (9:00ish). This is when things go sideways.
I was upstairs cleaning the room that Judah would be sleeping in for his nap, when I heard the crying. I came downstairs to find him crawling towards me with blood absolutely flowing down his face (9:05... 5 minutes after Rusty had sat down with his final). There was a trail of blood leading into the kitchen. I started saying, "oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no" I scooped him up and ran into the kitchen to get a towel for his head. The blood trail led to the kitchen where the oven rack that I had pulled out of the oven, in order to cook our Thanksgiving turkey, was sitting on the floor. Andrew has been known to pull it out from in between my washer and dryer and lay it flat on the floor to bang on it to make some metallic drumming awesomeness. I'm guessing that in the process of swinging it out from in between the machines, Judah got caught in the swing. After getting the blood cleaned off I glanced at the wound and knew it needed stitches. I started hyperventilating. Out loud I started repeating, "What do I do what do I do what do I do". Andrew is saying, "You're okay, Judah! You're okay, Judah!"
I then ran over to my neighbor's house and banged on his door as if our building was on fire! When he answered I said, "I need your help! ummmmm yeah, what do I do?" Confused he said, "What can I do?" I threw Judah into his arms and paced like an idiot, trying to figure out what to do. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find my phone. Finally Brandon just let me use his, and I tried to call Rusty. Obviously he didn't answer, because he had just sat down to take his final final. I ran around some more to try to find my phone, to call the pediatric nurse line. When I found it, I called Rusty again and left him a message letting him know that our gracious neighbor was going to take me and the boys to the doctor to get Judah stitches. Rusty called back in a hurry. His professor, Praise the Lord, let him turn in his final, and come back to take it later that day.
Brandon kept Andrew at the house while Rusty and I took Judah to Rex Urgent Care. We got Judah to the Urgent Care office, and they realized that his head wound went all the way down to the membrane that protects his skull!!! His bone was not damaged, so we got out of the X-ray, but he got 1 internal stitch, and 5 external stitches. The horrible baby straight jacket was the worst part, as usual. But Judah really handled it like a champ. His mother, did not.
My hope, after FREAKING out with Andrew's stitch experience, was that I would be cool under pressure if Rusty wasn't around. I failed myself. I was an absolute moron. Thank the Lord for cool headed neighbors.
