My poor boy

Ben had his first ER-worthy injury this afternoon. Actually, it was just the little quick care clinic in town, but still. We were out in the yard picking blueberries, and he was not even two steps off of the lawn when he tripped. When he landed, a stick poked him in his temple area. At first, because his hair was in the way, it was hard to see exactly what he was crying about. But when I finally saw it, I knew it wasn't just a normal little scrape. Once we got him inside and washed his face up a bit, I could see that within the small scraped area there was a decent puncture wound from the stick. He calmed down very quickly, so I waited a bit to see how the bleeding slowed. After a half hour or so, it was still bleeding some and thought we should have it looked at - better to be safe than sorry. Of course our pediatrician's office was already closed for the day, so i couldn't even call to ask their opinion - so rather than wait until the quick care office closed and be sorry we hadn't gone, we got in the car and headed over. 

While we were waiting, a friend met us at the clinic and picked Sophie up for me. It was such a nice thing to do, and it was really a help that I didn't have to occupy both kiddos during the wait. When Ben was finally seen, they said it was good that I brought him in. Even though it didn't seem to be bothering him much by then, it was still bleeding a little and needed to be closed up. She said that traditional stitches would have actually left a bigger scar, because of the location of the cut, so she opted to use Dermabond to glue it shut. It will still leave a scar, but it won't be as bad. 

Ben was so brave while the nurse cleaned the cut more thoroughly (taking out some little "pieces of tree," she said) and applied the Dermabond. He never flinched, and when she asked him how he was doing, he just said, "good." But in the car later, he told me that part really hurt. He's so tough. 

He's got a nice bump and bruise, in addition to the cut, but he's sound asleep now and doing well. He'll be sore tomorrow, I'm sure, but his biggest concern was whether he'd be able to still go to swimming lessons in the morning. She assured us he was fine to go, and that made him happy. 

Here's my sweet little guy about 15 minutes after the fall...