I was on my way to pick up Jaden from school (daycare) when they called to say he had fallen and was hurt (why didn’t I leave 10 minutes sooner!?). This is the second time in two weeks, and both times he fell flat on his face, albeit for a different reason and in a different location each time.

This time he was running with the velcro on his shoes not completely done and somehow tripped over the hanging strap. The problem is that he didn’t try to put his hands down to break his fall, so he fell flat on his face. They said his bloody nose was so bad it even scared the teachers. The lump on his head this time is twice the size it was two weeks ago – and two weeks ago it was the size of a golf ball.

I was so worried about him when I picked him up that I headed over to the doctors’ office but they had already closed. I called Neville to see if he thought I should take Jaden to the ER, but he said the closest ER is not equipped well for children and I should call the pediatrician’s on-call doctor first. When the on-call doctor called me back, it was actually the nurse. She said as long as he doesn’t start staring into space, and doesn’t get a high fever, he should be fine— it’s the back of the head that causes great concern. The front of the head is pretty stable. He’s in the bath right now getting ready for bed—- I’m not going to sleep tonight, I just know it.

I’ll have to talk with the early intervention people to see if the falling without putting hands out is something to worry about. We had this problem when Jaden started walking, which they said was because he didn’t crawl for long before he started walking. Without the practice on the floor, his reflex to use his arms when he fell wasn’t great. At the time they had us practice ‘wheel barrow’ walking with him, which fixed the problem in almost no time at all, but I feel like it’s happening all over again. I know it was only two falls but you should see him. He looks like he’s been beaten up. Ugh. Parenthood. Couldn’t one of you have warned me??

Somehow our trusty gate was not closed and our little adventurer decided to try to take the front hallway stairs by himself. Those are the stairs that are hardwood – very hard hardwood. When I ran in to see if he was okay, he was face down on the floor. He started crying almost immediately after the fall (I guess it first startled him enough that he didn’t know what happened), and when I picked him up it looked like he had a dent in his forehead. A little ice (which necessitated a fight with Jaden since he HATES having the ice pack on him…. like mother, like son with that one) and the dent went away, the bump went down, eventually the crying stopped, and he acted fine the rest of the night.

Jaden does fine going UP the stairs on his own. The problem is that he doesn’t realize yet his legs aren’t long enough to reach the next step when he tries to go DOWN the stairs. Neville had left the kitchen area where everyone was congregated to show his uncle around the house, so I’m guessing since the gate wasn’t up Jaden decided to follow his Dad. I suppose he went up a few steps, realized he wasn’t going to find his Daddy, and decided to turn around and go back into the kitchen with everyone else. 

Now, I did say everything was fine that night, but the next day I had the scare of my life. Jaden was acting fine when he woke up but then around 9:00 a.m. he started getting lethargic, which is unusual for my very active son. He kept wanting to sit in my lap and do *nothing* which is another sign that something is wrong. Then around 10:30 he fell asleep and I couldn’t wake him up easily, and when I did manage to rouse him he wanted to go right back to sleep. I called the pediatrician and they said “get him to the Children’s Hospital emergency room right away -we’ll call and let them know you are coming.”

“thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump” that’s the sound of my heart beating 10 times quicker than normal… I drove as calmly as I could to the hospital, and even managed to keep the swear words to myself when an 18-wheeler semi decided to change lanes ON TOP OF ME and I barely got out of the way by swerving into the breakdown lane. 

Now I’m really frantic…

A half hour to the hospital and insanity finding parking (there’s no ER parking in the “city”!) and then another 3 hours getting our blood pressure, weight, etc. done, then waiting, then filling out paperwork, then waiting, then seeing a nurse, then waiting, then finally seeing a doctor, and waiting again for them to discharge us. The whole time they asked us not to feed Jaden or give him anything to drink in case the doctor wanted to run certain tests. So the poor baby didn’t eat from 9:00 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon. He was a *little* cranky by then. Neville took the afternoon off from work and met us at the hospital around 12:30 – thank goodness for that because I was a basket case by then.

After all of the waiting we find out Jaden is okay. He started acting “normal” again after the first half hour at the hospital and the doctor said if there’s anything to worry about he would have gotten progressively worse, and not shown any signs of being ‘normal’ or ‘better.’ This was good to know. Thankfully I had the wherewithal to throw some food into the diaper bag so while we waited form them to discharge us we were able to feed Jaden. They finally discharged us, and we raced home to eat.    

We learned a very good lesson. Hopefully Neville will not disappear again without letting me know. I won’t ever let my eyes off of Jaden again no matter what distractions are tugging at my attention, and anyone who leaves the gate open again is —- well I can’t think of anything that’s not too evil to print, but I’m sure I will if it happens again (yes, Neville, that includes you!)… tee hee.