Fat Lip

Aaron got his first fat lip today. (You can barely see it in this photo, although you can see graham cracker residue I didn't clean off his mouth since it's still sore.)

He had a cow in one hand and a horse in the other when he fell and with no free hand to break his fall, he hit his face. I had my back turned and Thom just saw him at the last second. When we realized he was bleeding, we laid him down and tried to see how bad it was, but he was crying and didn't want us to touch his lip. I could see enough to know he'd cut his lip and was worried he might have knocked his front teeth loose. We decided to take him to Urgent Care.

The Urgent Care facility is at the same location as his pediatricians and is pretty close, but we arrived at 12:40 to discover it doesn't open until 1pm on weekends. Aaron had stopped crying before we left home and his lip stopped bleeding not long after we arrived at the parking lot for Urgent Care. There were 3 parents already waiting. Later, when we all milled around by the door, a woman came out explaining that she couldn't let us in before 1pm, but she gave us the sign in sheet to get started. On the honor system, we all signed in in the order we had arrived.

Aaron seemed to be the only kid who was injured rather than coughing. Even after they opened (and the waiting room seats nearly filled up), Thom mostly kept Aaron outside while we waited, partly to keep him entertained, partly to avoid excess germs. One of the parents outside with 2 kids said that whenever they went to Urgent Care, it seemed to take hours. Not what I wanted to hear when I was worried Aaron's lip was fusing to his front teeth or that he was going to swallow a loose tooth (I was too scared to check them myself).

But in reality, we were called in within 40 minutes of them opening and we were out by 2:10. The good news was that his teeth are fine and the frenelum (the skin that connects the lip to the gum, were were told) was intact (sometimes it gets cut), so no stitches. She said it would heal on its own and we could give Motrin if he has trouble eating, but he was doing fine without pain meds so far. In fact, when the doctor came in, he gave her the two Visitor stickers that Thom and I had been given to wear (and which he had been playing with for 5 minutes) and then gave her the cow and horse he had brought. He was in a good mood and thought she was a new playmate. And even though he was very unhappy when she actually examined him, he didn't hold a grudge and gave her five afterwards when she asked.

After a good nap, he had some graham cracker and milk, his normal post nap snack, and despite some initial discomfort and crying, he finished off 1 1/2 sheets of graham cracker and a decent amount of milk. He's a trooper.