I fell coming downstairs and cut between my toes so bad I had to get 4 stitches! I don’t like getting stitches.
He said
With four days off this weekend for me and the girls we had loose plans to spend them together and maybe even sneak down to Toronto and visit a friend and do some shopping. But, all that changed Friday afternoon as Emelia was wrapping up a playdate with her besties from the hood. As she was coming downstairs to tell us something, she lost her footing on a step and her foot slid off causing her to fall down. The trouble is as she fell, her leg shot forward towards the railing and her middle toes ended up divided by one of the railing spindles. She was crying and in a lot of discomfort and as Danielle looked at her sock to check her out she noticed a little bit of blood. When we got the sock off we saw a sizeable split in between her toes—one we were certain she would need stitches.
We immediately got ice on it and started to prepare Emelia for the notion of a hospital visit and stitches as her new afternoon activity. Her besties, the twins’ Mom – until recently, a paediatric emergency nurse – took a quick peek at it and confirmed she’d need stitches. Thankfully, the new crutches we bought a few weeks ago came in handy getting Emelia to the hospital. Sadly however, she knows how to use them well already at age nine. We packed everyone up, including the games and an iPad necessary to pass time in the Urgent Care waiting room and scooted over to St Joseph’s Hospital to get her zippered up. Despite there being a loaded waiting room we were in and out of the hospital in two hours flat complete with X-Rays which confirmed no breaks, and Emelia’s first four stitches. She doesn’t like getting them for sure, but she held up like a trooper, especially getting four different needle injections of freezing between her toes (I cringe even just typing that).
That definitely threw a wrench into our plans. Gone immediately was the trip down to Toronto, and in its place for most of the rest of the weekend was much closer to home and far less leaving the house type of activities. Even though Emelia was encouraged by the Urgent Care Doc to put weight on it as soon as possible, Emelia was definitely reluctant to do so all throughout the weekend. Today, was the first day she willingly did that and is now spending less time with the crutches. The only challenge is that with the tenderness of her foot, the swelling, and the bandaging, she can’t get a shoe on that foot, which at this time of year means she is still reliant on crutches for anything outside. But, the good news is, she is healing up nicely without any signs of infection and is in good spirits despite every reason to be going stir crazy.
With the slower, low key weekend on hand, we ran some quick errands after the hospital trip and got supplies so that we could hunker down in the house. One of those errands was to pick up a propane tank so we could have the inaugural first firing of my beloved new campfire pit. After got the other errands out of the way, and a Caramilk bar for our lil trooper, we were home just as skies turned dark for the evening. While Danielle got started on our dinner, I set up the fire pit, grabbed a whiskey and toasted the first fire with Emelia and Danielle at my side. That said it was very cold and windy, after five minutes, we all decided that was enough and were okay to spend real time at a fire another night — especially one when we find where our fold-up patio chairs are.
Saturday was New Year’s Eve and the best part about it was we had absolutely no plans for the day. It’s not a huge evening for us to party, much less even get together with others. Not a one of us enjoy crowds that much and the prospect of spending it together quietly together at home was far more alluring than much fancier things people do. We vegged about the house, I watched the NHL Centennial Classic Alumni Outdoor game and then Team Canada play USA in the World Junior Hockey Championships. And while neither team I wanted to win, did, it was still a great afternoon made better than Emelia now likes to watch hockey with her Daddy. It’s not that she loves the game like I do, but I can tell by the sorts of questions she asks while we watched, that she knows it’s important to me so she cares about it too. Plus we get to have some good snuggles on the couch to boot!
Yesterday being New Years Day and everything closed, Emelia crutched over to the twins with Danielle and she had a playdate with them for a couple hours which was the perfect remedy for our poor little housebound girl. She had a great time and was full of laughs and silliness by the time we went to collect her at the end of it. And we had even more good news, a former schoolmate and now gymnastics teammate was headed to an art camp the next day and her mother was wondering if Emelia wanted to come along and have a playdate after. We already knew what Emelia’s answer would be so we got her registered in the camp and confirmed the playdate details, and she was over the moon at her social calendar filling up.
Looking back, spending a couple hours in the hospital and getting stitches in between her toes were not really anywhere in the list of things we would want to do over this weekend off together, but it managed to wedge its way in there (quite literally). The good news is, it really didn’t derail us having another great week and then weekend together that we all had fun with, and managed to capture the attention of a growing nine year old girl and her parents who try to keep up. And, aside from the stitches, I would totally Groundhog Day the entire weekend over again, happily!
She said
This week was all about spending as much time together as possible and with family. Emelia had a few sleepovers with her cousins at her grandparents to start the week. She adores her cousins and it was a great way to recover from the post Christmas part of our break. John had to work much of the week so it meant Emelia and I had to find some fun things to do. Emelia got a few gift cards for Christmas so she loved going around hunting deals and making the most of her gift cards. She is my girl through and through.
The mid-week highlight of the week for Emelia was her first sleepover at our place with a friend. Over the summer she had a sleepover at her long time friend Marin’s place and we promised Marin’s parents that would happily return the favour. After a bit of back and forth we set Wednesday as the night. The girls were so excited and had an absolute blast. We started the day with going out to pick out movie treats for the girls and toppings to make some homemade pizza for their supper. When we got home they played and we started making dinner. Once they were done dinner they settled in with some snacks and we set them up with a movie. Emelia and Marin chose BFG. Both loved it and there was lots of giggling as they snuggled together watching the movie. Once the movie was done we sent them off to bed to ‘sleep’. And by sleep I mean giggling and more giggling until the wee hours.
And then we come to Friday – as John posted our plans for the weekend abruptly changed the second I heard the thump and scream from the kitchen as Emelia fell down the stairs. It only took a few seconds once we took the sock off Emelia’s foot to realize that we were off to the hospital to get stitches. Emelia of course was panicked at the thought of it, she however was sure she didn’t need it. I asked her if I called Susan to come over and look at it and she says you need to go will feel more comfortable going to the emergency room. Emelia said yes, so Susan came over and looked at it and instantly said what we knew – yes she will need stitches. Emelia was of course upset but Susan assured her it would be fine and would make things heal faster and properly. So off we went – we grabbed her crutches and she hobbled her way to the truck.
The staff at St. Joe’s were amazing, they dealt with everything quickly and with gentle approach putting Emelia at ease. She handled everything like a trooper, she of course cried when they had to put the needles in her feet but she held my hands tight and kept eye contact so she could stay calm. Once the freezing was in they had the challenge of putting the stitches in. I could see in the doctors face wondering how he was going to stitch solo between her toes. He finally asked if I would be comfortable holding Emelia’s toes open so he could stitch between the toes. After 4 stitches Emelia was mostly stitched back up with instructions to get into our doctor to get the stitches taken out in 10 days and the big instruction other than keep it clean, only showers until the stitches come out was that she could not return to gymnastics training until the stitches came out and they assured that she was healed because the risk of infection.
The rest of the weekend changed to plans of taking things easy, making sure Emelia stayed comfortable and basically hanging out at home. Emelia was going a bit stir crazy by New Year’s Day so she was able to have a quiet play with her best friends doing crafts at their place. It was the perfect cure for a stir crazy girl.
Before we knew it our week home was coming to a close and I was back to the grind today with the kids returning. And in spite of how the week ended it was an amazing Christmas break with lots of time with my favourite girl! She’s growing up so fast and I cherish each and every moment of these days together because they are going past in a blink of an eye.