Blood, flood or fire.

When I was an RA in college, I was instructed to not disturb our Head Resident on her days off unless there was "blood, flood, or fire."  Since then, I have used these words as a guide for waking Jimmy when he's working the midnight shift. 

waaaaAaAaAAAAA! Reagan is on the floor after falling down in the basement (with a little assist from her brother).  I scoop her up and squeeze her tight to help calm her cries.  She quiets. I lift her from my shoulder and her face is soaked in blood along with my shoulder.  Oh crap!  Find the source!  I sprint to sleeping husband/former EMT and scream him awake.  He's terrified that someone has died and totally out of sorts because he's recovering from the night shift.  "It looks like the rectangular block severed the connective tissue between her upper lip and gum," I tell him.  Since the mouth bleeds like a stuck pig, we figure it can't be that bad.  We call the pediatrician and they tell us to make a judgment call.  Helpful.  We discuss going to the ER, but decide to wait it out.  The bleeding stops.  Phew!

Though it was a hectic morning, I tried to return the house to normal.  I saddled up the kids to go for our morning walk and visit to the playground.  We're going down slides (yes all of us!), pointing out the colors, and having a good time until Reagan stopped drinking her bottle.  Blood filled her smile and now I can't find her right front tooth.  Somebody made a bad judgment call...  I call still-sleeping-Jimmy and alert him that I'm going to the ER, whether he's coming or not.  My next sprint is a little more exhausting than my first -- picture me huffing and puffing with the double stroller up a hill in the 70 degree weather.  When I get to our house the truck is running and I see Jimmy dashing out of the house with the diaper bag.  (Yeah, I've got a catch, ladies.)

Reagan on the way to the ER.

We arrive to the ER and there's a wait out the wazoo. Reagan has stopped bleeding, so Jimmy's waiting in the holding tank with seriously injured people who are all wondering why the heck the laughing baby is waiting along with them.  Because of this, I call the pediatrician from the car to see if it is worth coming to their office, even though they can't suture her.  The receptionist tells me to come and she will usher us to the doctor immediately.  Ok, they redeemed themselves from earlier. As we wait briefly for the doctor, we feel moronic since Reagan's laughing, walking, and smiling like nothing happened.  The doctor examined Reagan looking for anything that we didn't catch related to her fall.  We were told Reagan was just fine and they typically don't do anything about minor mouth injuries anyway.     

The next day, Reagan was back to her happy little self with  nothing to show for her scuffle with the block.

Oh yeah, and her little tooth never disappeared it was likely masked by blood and/or my hysteria. Thank God for hair dye to cover all of my child-induced gray hair!