Saturday night Isak was scampering merrily through the house, fell, and hit a chair. Smooth wood, but he managed to get a decent sized laceration on his forehead. It was scary – there was so much blood, we couldn’t even tell what he’d done at first. After we’d calmed him down and cleaned him up, we quickly decided to go to emerg. for stitches. Through the largest lightning storm we’ve had in years, we drove to VGH, but they said (a little surprised we’d made it four years without having to bring him in for something) to take him to Children’s Hospital which was fairly close by.

I’d managed to pack a quick emergency bag with a book, a new hotwheels rescue car, and the little dvd player which helped pass the time. All the staff there were amazing, and came bearing gifts: a slathering of anesthetic gel and a snazzy bracelet with his name on it. After meeting with a few medical poohbahs they decided that because it was a clean, straight wound, and due to where it was, they could use dermabond (a sterile super glue for skin) instead of giving him stitches with a needle, so we opted for that, crossing our fingers that it keeps together for the next week.

He was very brave and cheerful (except for the actual gluing, not being able to move upset him, and the tearful “mommydaddynooooo!” upset me), chatting with the doctors, asking questions about the “kids hospital” and showing off his “emergency vehicle”. Poor little froggy. Poor us too, it’s awful to see your kid hurt, scared. Yesterday we picked out some special bandages (he chose scooby-doo, winnie-the-pooh, and spongebob squarepants) so he can have a selection for protection, and he’s been very careful with the area so far. We’ll have a gentle week and hope for the best. He’ll probably have a small scar on his forehead – we’ll see.

I suppose the ‘good parenting’ part of this goal comes in with trying to deal with the emergencies that happen in the best, calmest way possible. Things will happen – does anyone make it through childhood without some sort of incident, without at least one scar? Funny how the stories come out – one nurse pointed to a little line on her cheek, saying that her brother had thrown a berenstain bears book at her when they were kids. Markus and I went over our various “scar stories” after we got home too. I suppose being attacked by a wooden chair isn’t overly dramatic, but when you note the fluffy vicious polar bear sitting on it, it makes a fine tale of boyhood bravery.

All in all, we tried to make his trip to the hospital “fun” so it won’t seem like a bad or scary place to go, should we ever need to return sometime (knocking wood).