Evening in the ER

Yesterday we reached an inevitable parental milestone that no one wants to make. Our first trip to the ER with our child.

No fun.

Em was standing in the large part of the cart (I know, I know) as I was grocery shopping. Not the best safety practice I admit, but she's only allowed to stand up by me as I hand her snacks. And my child is always obedient and would never wander up to the front of the cart in the two seconds when I wasn't looking. Plus, the buckle on this particular cart was broken and my little wild thing has been known to weasel her way out of grocery cart buckles anyway. Alright, enough justification? Yes, thank you, I felt like a terrible mother.

It all transpired quickly, as accidents tend to do. She crept up to the front of the cart, and as I was in the middle of telling her to come back, she flipped over. On her head. It made the most awful cracking sound on the hard floor. I dove for her and ended up with some pretty painful bruises on my knees, which makes me realize how much her head must hurt. My initial thought as she was falling was that she was going to break her little neck, but thankfully it was fine. She screamed (a good sign) as I cradled her in my arms on the floor while half the store stopped to stare. I got off the floor and went to sit at a bench where there happened to be an EMT who briefly checked her. Matt asked if he was wearing an EMT uniform because he was probably just hitting on me, you know, like most 25 year old guys do to messy-haired pregnant mommies with screaming toddlers on their laps. But any who, he thought I should take her in to get an x-ray and I phoned my doctor who agreed. Unfortunately, urgent care facilities won't see children under two, so off to the wonderful city ER we drove.

Ew.

Not the place for an almost two year old and pregnant lady. When we weren't outside being blown away by the 25 mph winds, we were scrunched up in the farthest corner from everyone else as possible. Turns out I am not very compassionate when it comes to small spaces of hacking, puking, crying people. At least not in this situation. It was gross.

Four hours later, we left the hospital with empty tummies and a good report. Her x-rays came back fine, so we headed to grandma and grandpa's to get some food since I never did finish that grocery shopping. Em got her fair share of sympathy and home we went. After getting her pj's on Em told us she wanted to cuddle. How could we possibly resist such a request? We all fell asleep in each others arms, which couldn't have been a better way to end the day.