First Accident

Today Stephen had his first major bike accident. I don't know who was more traumatized by it: Stephen, Timothy or me! We were heading down the street that has a slight hill and Stephen whizzed past Timothy on his tricycle and Christopher in his stroller. I warned him to slow down because I knew it could get fast for him, plus there was a curve coming up. Well, sure enough! He rounded the curve and wiped out big time! He jumped up and all we saw was blood pouring down his face. He was screaming like crazy and Timothy started shouting, too. "Mommy! He has blood! Mommy, his face hurts!" I had a difficult time getting down to him because Timothy panicked then and didn't want to ride his bike down the hill so I had to drag him and push the stroller at the same time, all the while hollering to Stephen (who couldn't hear me over his screaming anyway!) to hang on because I was coming!

By the time I got to him, there was blood up and down his arms and legs. His face was a total mess. His shirt and shorts were drenched in blood and I was starting to panic. I only had two skimpy baby wipes with me and I tried to sop up what I could see coming from his nose, but it was still pouring from somewhere else ... in his mouth. My fear was his teeth. After getting him calmed down enough to listen to me, I had him open his mouth so I could take a look. Thank God all his teeth were still there! I could see a HUGE gash on his upper lip where all the blood was coming from. We got things stablized and I tried to head back home ... half way around the block yet! He refused to ride his bike. Timothy refused to get on his. Christopher is wailing because everyone else is crying. I felt like just plopping down on the grass in front of me and screaming, too, until some neighbor would come out and deal with this all for me. Instead, I hooked Stephen's front wheel into the basket of the stroller and plunked him on the seat so that he could ride back as I dragged him along...back uphill! I forced Timothy to ride his bike anyway even though he was screaming that he didn't want to. I also handed Christopher some junk mail that we had just gotten from the mailbox and he was happy looking at the ads for ReMax.

When we got home, I tried as calmly as I could to get Stephen settled down and cleaned up. During this whole ordeal, he had also managed to drench me in blood so I had to clean myself up as well. What a mess! How disgusting! I was trying so hard not to be grossed out. I kept telling Stephen that Uncle Joe has a job where he does stuff like this all the time and he stopped screaming briefly to ask the simple, but familiar question, "Why?!" I couldn't answer that one because I'm not really sure why Uncle Joe wanted to have this job, but we sure are thankful that he does!!

Tonight before bed when we were recapping our day, we were talking about the accident because I prayed, "Thank you for using Stephen's helmet to protect his head." He said to me, " Mommy, today after my accident, my top lip was a mountain because it had a huge, huge bump on it. But then it sank down and became a hill. Now it's just a flat road again." What imagination and description he has!

So despite the major nosebleed, the "mountain" lip, the "pink marker" colored scrape on the knee, the ripped up elbow and the emotional trauma of the experience, we are all doing well tonight and Stephen is back to his old tricks of getting out of bed to complain that he's too hot or too cold or that his stomach is a desert ... it needs water!

I'm glad today is over. I'm exhausted.