Kickin it off!

Okay, considering this is a blog for just simply blogging whatever I want to blog about and hope that others find this stuff interesting enough to keep coming back...we'll kick it off with one that pulls at the heartstrings.

I have a two year old daughter named Kylie. Actually, this is a guy thing..she's actually 19 months old..but, what the hell, she's close enough to 2 that I just consider her as being 2! Anyway, my little girl is very clumsy. In fact, her older brother, Ryan (4), is just as clumsy as she is. (I'll be posting more on them in the future for sure). They have both inherited their mother's inate clumsiness. Let's just say I always need to make sure that I predicate most discussion when she is present with..."Please remember, she is very clumsy." She's covered in so many bruises from walking into walls, banging into tables, and knocking shit over that if she were ever to go to an ER I'm sure they would suspect some form of abuse going on in my home.

Anyway..I think you guys get the point..my wife and kids are very clumsy..which brings me back to my daughter. We have a 2 floor home with steps leading from the living room to the upstairs rooms. It has a very wide base, so we can't block them off at the bottom. We have a gate blocking access starting at the 5th step. So..Kylie likes to walk up those steps and hang on the gate. Well, Mom had just gotten back from grocery shopping and was bringing in the bags. I had just walked into the kitchen, Mary just put the first set of bags down by the steps so she could hug Kylie, and Kylie was on her way back down the steps. Right around step #3, for no apparent reason, Kylie tripped. Mary couldn't get to her in time to stop her fall. I'm sure all you parents out there understand this panic when you see your child falling and you can't get there fast enough to save them...time moves in slow motion at this point.

In any case, Kylie fell squarely on her left side with the brunt of the fall on her left arm. Yup...she broke her arm. I think it only took us about 5 seconds to get to the car and we were on our way to the emergency room. Ryan had already taken his shoes off - he went to the store with mom - it was raining outside - so, I grabbed him by his arm..and whoosh..we're out the door. His socks were soaked by the time we got to the car...what a great kid he is..didn't even complain. He was just as concerned about the welfare of his baby sister as me and mom were.

Well..to make a long story short..we got to the ER within 10 minutes. We got there, walked right up and were triaged and taken to an exam room within 10 minutes of arriving. We saw a nurse within 5 minutes of being placed in the exam room and we saw the doctor within 10 minutes from there. So...she falls at 6:35 pm. We get to the ER by 6:45. We are triaged and put in an exam room by 6:55pm and we get there right at shift change! (7:00pm). Everything went very smoothly considering. I'm used to 3 and 4 hour ER visits with lots of waiting time in between. We were on our way back home by 9:00pm. The entire staff was excellent. Ryan got lots of Spider-Man and Scooby Doo stickers along with a coloring book and crayons. Kylie was given a little stuffed bear doll.

In between putting all of his stickers on dad, Ryan would occasionally go over and kiss Kylie on her head and make sure she was okay. It is so tough to see your baby daughter with swelled red eyes looking up at you with a single tear..wondering why this happened to her. Running through my daddy head I could tell she was looking at me wondering why I let her get hurt. Well..needless to say, the Easter Bunny was extra good to her today. He came back a second time this afternoon with more stuff! But..our little girl is okay. Ryan is running around knocking her down again. Mom is back to bumping into the walls and screaming profanities....life is back to normal again in this house of chaos!