A Stitch in Time

Just before Christmas we had our first child-head-wound experience. We feel truly initiated as parents now.


Ellie's carefree climbing and rough-housing has been catching up to her lately.


This resulted from going too fast, tripping, and running headlong into the hard plastic of the humidifier we've had to have in our room for Charlie. We're trying to think of a cooler story for her to tell about the scar when she gets older.


She was OK once we got the bleeding stopped, but both Brady and I had to hold her down to keep her still while the doctor worked on her. She kept saying, "Hurt the bonk!" (Ellie-speak for forehead) and, "I'm cryin'!" which the doctor thought was kind of funny. Lately Ellie has thought it pretty important to inform us when she's crying.

She's had a pretty rough-and-tumble couple of weeks. Like I said, her lifestyle seems to be catching up with her. Trying to explain her maladies to us, she will tell us she "hurt the sock" when something hurt her foot, or "hurt the pants" when she falls down. She also recently shut her finger in the door, which worried us might be another emergency run to the doctor. Thankfully not.

One night we heard her usual chatter after putting her down for bed. Suddenly, we heard cries of, "Ow! Ow! Owchie! OW!" I thought she was trying a new tactic to get out of bed, but just in case I went in to check on her.

Without turning on the lights I asked, "What's wrong, Ellie? What's 'owchie'?"

Her immediate response, "Charlie bit me!" (She wasn't referring to her toothless baby brother, I'm pretty sure, but the youtube video.) Very funny, I thought. I laughed, tucked her back in and left.

A little while later we heard the protests of pain again. Finally, about two hours after bed time, Brady went in again, light on this time. He saw a little trickle of drool tinged with blood on her sheets. Turns out she had bit the inside of her cheek really hard and it had started bleeding. Oh, man did I feel bad. I guess "Charlie bit me," is 2-year-old code for "I bit me." We finally got her calmed down and sleeping.

The next few days she would bite her cheek again in the same place, inadvertently I think, because it was swollen and would stick out. So each night while tucking Ellie in, Brady would remind Ellie, "Don't bite your cheek." It became part of the routine for a while. Once he stopped saying that, Ellie would add it on for him. He'd say, "Goodnight, sleep tight, etc. . . ." and Ellie would pipe up, "Bite you cheek, Daddy."

Just the other night I went in to check her in the middle of the night. As I was leaving, I heard a groggy, "Bitecher-cheek, Mamma." I responded, "Bite your cheek, Ellie." I wonder if that will stick. She'll be 15, leaving the house, "Love you. Bye. Bite you cheek! . . . What? Don't your parents say that to you?"

Thank goodness for the resiliency of 2-year-olds. Ellie bounces back pretty quickly and it doesn't take much to please her. Here she is ready for another adventure, "puddle-whomping" with Daddy.




And not to be left out, here are some pictures of Charlie in the new hat he got from his Aunt Jana. Adorable, if I do say so myself. Check out those cheeks!