Yesterday morning, I woke up at my usual 4 am to begin work. By 6:30, the kids were percolating around the house and I could feel the floor vibrating with the force of their energy.

At 8 am on the dot, they shot out the front door into our still-foggy yard. I heard the side door into our garage being opened, and shot out of my office. The garage is not a place for them to play - we've got a bunch of stuff out there I don't want them getting into (holiday decorations first and foremost - my nine-year-old would have us in the Christmas Spirit year round if given half a chance.)

Anyway, I opened the front door and ordered the kids out of the garage. The phone rang, I turned to grab it, and 30 seconds later, my five-year-old stumbled through the door with a bleeding gash in her lower leg.

Apparently, in Circus Language, "get out" means "quick, hide!"

In an attempt to hide herself, her leg scraped against a broken light fixture that is too big for our normal trash can and sliced her calf open on some part of it.

She was crying, but more from shock than pain. I took one look and knew it needed to be stitched. Heaving her into my arms (and a hefty sigh for the loss of the next few hours) I calmly directed the other two kids to finish getting dressed and brush their teeth and hair while I dressed the cut as best as I could and got dressed myself. Within 10 minutes, we were in the car on the way to the ER.

Mercifully the ER wasn't full at that hour, and we were seen with only a 20 minute wait. I had put the stink-eye on my older two about being calm and quiet and patient, but my son couldn't shut up. The kid seriously kept up a running monologue the entire two-plus hours were were at the hospital.

I pity his third-grade teacher.

The hurt one held it together until we were ushered into the exam area. An extremely curt nurse, who apparently didn't believe in sugar coating the facts, even when faced with a crying, tiny five-year-old, spread a numbing agent on a pad and slapped it over the cut area.

"Mom, you'll want to hold that in place."

When my daughter started whimpering in fear and asked the nurse if it would hurt, the nurse said "YES." Then she gave me the stink eye and stalked out.

She sure helped matters along. I guess dealing with a scared five-year-old is no different than an incoherant drunk or something.

Anyway, the rest of the ER visit passed in fits and starts. I got a nice sucker punch to the jaw when I had to hold her down for the numbing injections. She also screamed at her brother "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

I like that approach. Pass the buck!

By the time we got her calmed down again, it was time to irrigate the wound and then stitch it. We survived with no punching, but I did get clawed when the doctor accidentally pulled a leg hair.

Back at home, she cuddled up in my arms for about 2.5 seconds before falling asleep in an exhausted, soggy heap.

Nothing like back to school photos featuring stitches, huh?

(this happened a week ago - I've got a bunch of half written posts to finish.)