There was an incident...

I was volunteering at the school one Wednesday afternoon in May, just as I have done all year. I was just getting ready to leave when the school secretary came to the art room with Garrett. She began to tell me about missed calls and messaged she'd left for me (and Brian). I figured Garrett was having some trouble breathing and needed his inhaler. But then she said, "there was an incident on the playground and I think he needs stitches." Garrett proceeded to take the ice pack off of his eye, revealing a gash in his eye brow. I then thought, yep, to the Urgent Care we shall go! 

Once I got both boys signed out for the day, we headed to the B and W clinic to see what they could do for my little man. On the way, I asked Garrett to explain what had happened. (I heard an account from his teacher, but I wanted to hear from him). He said they were playing tag on the playground and he ran up the slide to avoid getting tagged and ran into another child's knee. This then pushed his glasses up into his eye brow, causing the gash. I almost felt sorry for Garrett, until the words registered "I ran up the slide". I figure he's been aware of the "rule" to not run up a slide since he was about 18 months old and we started telling him NOT to run up slides. But apparently, 7 years was not long enough to understand what the rule was for. He boldly declared on the way to the doctor's office, "There needs to be a new rule on the playground: NO RUNNING UP SLIDES!" I literally had to hold back my laughter. I told him I thought that was already a rule. He said, "No, it needs to be a rule everyone follows. Someone else could get hurt."

We asked Garrett about why he would go up a slide when he'd been told for YEARS not to, and he said, "Well, I've never gotten hurt before and neither have any of the other kids, so I thought it would be ok." He now sees the error of his ways.

Thankfully, they were able to use Dermabond to glue the wound shut instead of stitches. The doctor said either method was indicated for such a gash, but the glue was less traumatic. I was relieved. Garrett was relieved. Hopefully, a lesson was learned...time will tell.

Here are some "after" pictures, after he was glued back together. Aside from some bruising and swelling the first couple of days and the inconvenience of not being able to get the wound wet for 5 days, this was not too big of a deal. It is really amazing that it was the first "incident" with Garrett that required immediate medical attention.