Slip Sliding Away... to the Emergency Room

I'm always impressed with what Andrew remembers. I hardly ever wear makeup, wear lipstick maybe once or twice a year, and hardly ever even put on lip gloss.  Tuesday morning, Andrew comes in my room carrying what is actually parts to a broken castor wheel from a light stand. There is a little black metal tube and then a knob. He put the knob on top of the tube and then pulled it out and dabbed it on his lips and said, "Mommy, I have stick on my lips."  (lipstick)  I'm intrigued too with how his mind can take what he's seen and heard - and break it up. He didn't repeat what I would have told him "I'm wearing lipstick or lipgloss"  ... he broke it down himself into stick that goes on lips, therefore, he's wearing stick on his lips. 

I was writing a message to Annelise and I asked Andrew if he wanted to add anything. "Yes. Hmmm. I like Chicken. Tell her about Chicken."  LOL   I love how random that was.

Friday after school, we made a run through Lowe's to pick up some parts daddy needed. As we were walking through the store, somehow Andrew slipped or tripped and fell on his face. Even more puzzling, is that he split his chin open. As he walked toward me, arms out and wailing, I noticed the underside of his chin gaping open. I sat on the floor, in the middle of the store and just held him and rocked him. I lifted the bottom of my shirt and tried to hold it to his chin but it made him cry harder. Daddy had dropped everything and run to the bathroom to get toilet paper, but he wouldn't let us hold that to him either. So, we let him bleed.  We left everything with an employee standing by and headed straight to the hospital. He screamed all the way there and kept saying, "I don't want to go to the hospital!" He finally calmed down as we approached the hospital. We don't see an emergency entrance anywhere, so we had to go in and ask where to go. We just had to go a little farther around the hospital. We got him checked in and went to find a seat. They all looked filthy dirty. He announced he was hungry (it's after 5 by now) and we had no food or snacks on hand. He picked out a package of fruit snacks from the vending machine and ate those, quite content and happy.  He got called into Triage to get checked out - he was scared to sit in the chair for them until we said it was like playing doctor. They took his temperature and everything like that, then sent us back into the waiting room since no hospital beds were ready. It was an entire hour from when we got there and when they got a room ready for him. About 15 minutes before we got called into a room, I sent Ted to find food. He brought back Hardees chicken wraps, a hotdog, and a burger.  The nurse and doctor were GREAT with him.  They put a numbing gel on some gauze and taped it to his chin. Ted applied a little pressure to it while we fed him a hotdog and some fries and some chicken wrap.  They gave us a choice of using stitches or a lot of glue.  We opted for the glue just so we wouldn't have to come back and have the stitches removed and traumatize Andrew all over again. I explained to Andrew what was going to happen and that he was safe, and that it was okay to be scared. He was trying really hard to be brave. I left the room when they were ready to work on him, I knew they'd have to hold him down and still and I was certain he would cry and stare right at me looking for a rescue.  He was a CHAMP. He calmed right down and talked with the nurse and doctor the entire procedure. He still had to be still and lying down for ten minutes after they were done to allow the glue to set. He did not like that, but I talked to him about the glue and explained how it worked and that it was different from the "white glue" he uses at home.  Boy was he ready to leave when it was all done.. we were there for three full hours. We promised him ice cream when we got home.

Earlier on Friday, Ann Arnold had brought over a wooden train table. I hid all the wooden tracks and trains and just set his plastic thomas train sets on the table. When we got home from the hospital it was 9pm and it was the first time he was seeing it. He came around the couch, stopped, and said, "oh! Wow!"  Very pleased!

I had also purchased several toddler board games that arrived on Friday and I put them in a game cabinet that Andrew can reach. Saturday he had slept in until 9am (unheard of!) and thus went down for an afternoon nap late. I wasn't sure he'd even go down, but I told him if he goes to sleep, I'd show him a new game when he woke up. Boy was he excited! I played a couple of the new games with him, and then when my next photoshoot arrived, Daddy had a turn playing all the new games.  He's very pleased to have new things to do.

Andrew sings nearly all day when he's home. Whatever he is doing, he is singing as well. Usually it's "where is Thumbkin" that Papa taught him, and the "Listen, Obey, and Be Blessed" song.  He knows the entire chorus and parts of some of the verses. One line he starts off singing correctly and then it changes as he gets involved in an activity.  "If you'd be happy and enter his rest.." becomes "If you'd be happy and enter his friends..."  I know I've done that before. I'll have a song stuck in my head and later realize my brain has changed the words to something similar.

Sunday after the meeting, he took a couple of new friends and daddy into the back school and gave three talks at the podium! In one of them he asked his audience to "open to Matthew 24" 

He also explained to me twice this week that girls are "sisters" and boys are "brothers" and would name off people in the congregation and tell me if they were a brother or a sister.  I'm guessing they discussed family relationships in school - but since he hears 'brother' and 'sister' at Kingdom Hall, he has made the connection outside of the family unit as well.