If Only Time had a Remote Control

You know those moments when things seem to happen in slow motion and you see catastrophe coming just before it strikes? And at the back of your mind you're thinking, "Where's pause? Where's pause?" That was me on Saturday as I watched Becca reach for the lid to a can of formula I was opening with one hand while I held her with the other. My mind was screaming, "Crap, she's going to slice her finger!" but the rest of me was too slow to respond and her poor little thumb caught the edge of that infernal formula can.

I grabbed a napkin, pressed it on the cut, and ran downstairs to consult with Brian. Peeking under the napkin, it definitely looked deep enough for stitches. So, leaving the kids with Brian's friend, Matt (who was visiting from out of town) Brian and I jumped in the car and sped off. After driving in the wrong direction for a few minutes, trying to remember where the stupid Urgent Care was, we finally found one and rushed in just as it started pouring rain. I walked in the door and asked, "Can we get stitches here?"

"Sure," the girls at the front desk said. "Who needs stitches?"

And then I realized that I looked like I was carrying a blanket, not a baby, because I'd thrown one over her to dash through the rain. So the nurse and doctor came out and tch-tched and looked at the thumb and got blood everywhere and told us she'd be alright but the only thing they couldn't do was put her under.

I held my poor little crying baby in my arms as I sat in the chair in the, would you call it a procedure room?, and tried to calm her as they prepped her heavily bleeding thumb. They had to put a tiny little rubber tourniquet on it and then they pumped it full of anesthetic until it looked like a white hot dog and finally started to sew it back up.

Even though she couldn't feel the pain anymore, Becca still wailed. Then it hit me that she'd never eaten that bowl of cereal I'd been fixing with that blasted can of formula because we ran out the door instead. And here I was holding her to my(fully-clothed) chest while all these people were holding down one of her arms and and no one was letting her at the milk that she knew was right in front of her face. Oh, she was so very angry. She screamed and screamed and screamed until she was so exhausted she started falling asleep, only to startle back awake and scream some more. I think it would have been better if Brian had held her for the sewing part. As soon as they finished up, I whipped out the blanket and said, "I'm just going to feed her right now, if you don't mind."

The male nurse ducked out of the door rather quickly. But the female doctor said her husband had just brought her own baby in for her to nurse and she didn't mind.

Becca finally got her meal and fell sound asleep and when she woke up at home later that evening, she didn't seem to remember her terrible ordeal or mind the giant bandage on her thumb. In fact, she just thought it was a new pink chew-toy.

Oh, my poor little Rebecca. I'm so sorry.