Crosby goes to the ER: A Story of Blood and Popsicle Beatings

While I have much to say about moving, where I live now, what it’s like to live here with 2 small kids while remodeling an entire home and so very much more, I would like to hold those thoughts and share with you our latest trauma, which is now no longer any of the above.

Before I get into it, let me first remind you of my daughter’s trip to the emergency room when she was 2. The one where she almost bit her tongue off. Crosby was just a baby then, and now, almost one year later, it was his turn to get doped up and stitched up.

About a week ago I was following my children down the steps of our new house. Steps that had recently been comfortably covered in plush carpeting, but now were exposed hard (really, really hard) wood. They were in a rambuncious mood, and as I watched them from one step back – traveling down together a little too close to each other for comfort – I felt a deep urgency to get in front of them. I took one step to get around them, but I was already too late. Crosby slipped and tumbled down 4 steps, cracking his face on the edge of one of them. Now you may recall that this is not his first spill down the stairs. The first happened almost a year ago, and I take the blame for letting him reach the stairs alone while I argued with Addy. But this time I was practically next to him when it happened.

He hit the ground with a thud and immediately started screaming. I ran to him, and as soon as I was over him I saw the blood starting to ooze from his head. I scooped him up to get a better look and that’s when the tsunami of red poured down his face and onto his chest, into my hair, onto my shirt, pooling on the floor. I could see a gash on his forehead. I looked at Addy, who was sitting on the stairs crying. A split second passed while a million thoughts flooded my mind as I held a towel to Crosby’s wound and tried to comfort Addy. Can I get them both to the hospital by myself in this condition? What if he doesn’t stop bleeding? What if he loses consciousness while I’m driving? I have no family nearby to help me anymore. So I called 911. Within minutes a firetruck stopped in front of our house, blocking off the street. Five large men entered the house, sending Crosby into hysterics and causing Addy to cower on the couch. “Don’t move him!” they ordered, but he wouldn’t stop squirming as they wiped the blood from his eyes, cheeks and ears. I answered a zillion questions, all the while clutching my screaming son and desperately trying to reach out to Addy, who was too scared to even come near me. An ambulance arrived and by this time, the bleeding had stopped and Crosby started crying louder because he couldn’t see the amazingly awesome trucks in his front yard and how dare I make him miss this?!!!

At this point my wonderful new neighbor appeared in the doorway with her little girl, saying she’d be happy to watch Addy so I could go with Crosby. She had a popsicle in hand to help lure Addy out the door. My brave girl. She went. By this time Joey was on his way home and my mom was on her way over.

Crosby stopped crying the second he got in the ambulance – this was the sweetest ride of his life.

Let me pause here to share the underlying story in all of this. Since moving on to our new, very residential, quaint street, we have had a dumpster parked in the driveway. Also, since we moved into my grandma’s old home, which had been sitting vacant since she went into assisted living over a year ago, the yard looks horrendous. Dead grass and weeds everywhere. There is also an old dishwasher sitting in the driveway that we have not yet carted off to the junk yard. So in other words, I look like I live in the neighborhood crack house. A feeling I’m accustomed to.

So, now the crack house has a firetruck and an ambulance in front of it, parked in the center of the street so no one else can get through. My kindly neighbor enters the house only to find that we have plywood floors in the living room cause that’s what was under the old carpeting we tore out. Then I emerge with my screaming child, both of us covered in blood. I do not think I’ll be hosting a play date anytime soon. We are the black sheep of this supremely adorable cul-du-sac.

Anyways…we get to the hospital and it’s pretty clear that Crosby just needs some stiches. They smear numbing jelly on his wound and, though he refuses to put on the hospital gown, he’s a happy camper.

So they send in a nurse with loads of toys before letting him suck down a little tube of infant narcotics to make him more “cooperative” while they suture his wound. Fifteen minutes later, my son was tripping out of his mind. He couldn’t hold his head up, kept saying “Whoa. Mommy.” and smiling like he knew all of humanities deepest secrets. As instructed, I layed down on the hospital bed with him while they stitched him up in my arms. The pediatric nurse kept him entertained the entire time. It was over and done in about 15 minutes.

But then we had to wait for the drugs to wear off. And much like I imagine it is for many users when their high is ending, Crosby got mighty, mighty pissed off and began screaming at the top of his lungs. The nurse had given him a popsicle after his stitches. He held it in his little hand and rather than take a lick of the sugary sweetness, he decided instead to beat me with it, a chunk of it flying across the room as it made contact with my nose, leaving me dripping in sugary red goo. We carried our little man out sans popsicle, and he continued screaming and hitting us, making passerbys stop in their tracks and move to the other side of the hallway. It was awesome, especially because my shirt and hair were still covered in blood. I looked like Mom of the Year. And of course, this scene continued as we pulled in our driveway and walked from the car to the house, Crosby shrieking loud enough for every last one of our neighbors to hear.

An hour later, he was his normal self, but completely exhausted and went to bed. He’s been fine ever since, thank god. In the end, the ambulance was probably not needed, but I didn’t know what else to do. We’ve chatted with Addy on a few different occasions, trying to talk her through how she was feeling and helping her understand what happened. It helps that she went through a similar experience.

As always, it’s awful when your child gets hurt. But in the end, all I feel is gratitude because this was minor, just like Addy’s. It leaves me feeling so thankful that my family is healthy, and that my neighbors will come to the rescue, even if they think I’m a drug dealer.

Just for comparisons sake, here’s a picture of the blood that spilled when Crosby got a fat lip the first time he fell down the stairs.

And here’s the latest, and hopefully the last. And yes, the backdrop of this photo is the lovely industrial-chic plywood floors in the living room.

• ← And then it was time to go
• On moving into Grandma’s house →