A day of firsts

Wednesday was a day of firsts. It was Cooper's first day of 1st grad and the boys and I walked him over to school in the morning. I could tell he was a little nervous, but also really excited. He found his teacher, Ms. Char, when it was time to line up and after that he was fine. He waved goodbye to me and off he went. It was a little easier to leave him this year, but I still waited anxiously all day for him to come home and tell me about his day. I asked him how it went and he just shrugged and told me "ok." I think he enjoyed it more than he lets on. :-)

Another first - our first trip to the ER for stitches.  That same day the boys were playing at the neighbors after school and Hudson took a header down their basement stairs. He face planted into the corner of their wall and received a nice gash on the right side of his chin. I took a look at it after the neighbor came to get me and it was obvious he would need stitches - the skin was gaping open. It was pretty gruesome. I drove him to the ER, where we had to wait 2 1/2 hours for him to receive 16 stitches. He was a brave little trooper. After the initial hysteria wore off, he just sat on the bed watching cartoons and playing on my phone, totally chill. He had a hard time during the actual stitching, but for all intents and purposes he was a rock. Literally. He would not smile or laugh no matter how hard I tried - he was a stone. My boys have already locked in that false tough guy act. ;-) I'm just glad the stitches dissolve so we don't have to go back to have them removed.

This is the 2nd time I've had to take him to Cardin Children's Hospital at Banner Desert (the first time was when he was 18 months old and swallowed a lithium battery) and I have to say I wasn't impressed either time. Unfortunately, it's the closest hospital to our house, so while I would like to say it will be our last trip there I'm not that naive. I'm raising 3 boys - its kind of inevitable that one will get hurt again. I just hope there's a long stretch before our next visit.