There seems to be something about Romer boys as they approach their second birthday: there must be a trip to the emergency room. For Paul, that trip happened after I dropped the attic ladder on his forehead. I guess we were being a little too careful with Michael, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

We had put some shelves out in the garage to await painting. Last Thursday, Michael saw one of them and thought "ladder". This is normal for him. We really can't turn our backs on him for a moment without him climbing up something. Anyway, the shelf wasn't secure enough, so he pulled it down on top of himself. This bruised and scraped his head and split his upper lip open. Not wanting to take any chances with a head injury, Kathy called an ambulance and they took them to LeBonheur Children's Hospital.

This picture was taken in the emergency room. As you can see, once his initial shock was over, he was back to being his sweet self. Once the staff had a chance to observe him pulling on the injured lip and playfully bopping his head against the wall, they decided there was no sign of concussion or anything worse.

I arrived at the hospital about an hour and a half later, bringing some food. Good thing, too, because we were there for another three hours after that. When they were finally ready to sew up his lip, the nurse gave him a sedative and a painkiller. He hadn't had a nap all day and he had just eaten, so they figured he would get drowsy and fall asleep in about twenty minutes. Then they would come in and sew him up.

It didn't work. You can't make my boy sleep if he doesn't want to, even if you trank him. About three times he would lean back in Kathy's arms and close his eyes, then he would rally himself and fight back to consciousness. It was just like trying to put him to bed at night. Forty minutes later, they decided to plunge in and get it over with. Two young men came in to do the job. They started cleaning the wound and Michael put up a fight. One man looked at the other and said, "Papoose?" The second answered, "Yeah, I think so." So they brought in a board with restraints on it and we strapped Michael down. Then one man proceeded with the cleaning while the other devoted all his energy to holding Michael's head still. I mean all his energy; he broke a sweat early and veins started popping out on his arms after a while. He looked up at one point and said, "He's a tough little guy, isn't he?" I can't remember if that was before or after Michael pulled his arms out of the restraints and we had to re-strap them down.

Michael, of course, was fully awake during the whole procedure, and screaming bloody murder. He had made himself hoarse by the time they were ready to begin the stitching. About halfway through the first stitch, he was yelling what Kathy was pretty sure was "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" However, what came to our ears was a deep croaking voice shouting "Die! Die! Die!" Kathy and I agreed it was a good thing that one man was holding his head, because we didn't want to see it start to spin around. I leaned in toward the men and whispered, "I don't think he really means it."

Thankfully, these guys were really good. They got three stitches in Michael's lip. We released him from the restraints and Kathy picked him up. He immediately fell asleep!

That lasted about ten minutes, then he woke up again. So we left the hospital at about 9 PM and drove about 45 minutes to get home. This whole time my son, who had not had a nap, had been drugged, and was riding at night in a moving vehicle, was awake and chatting away. After we got him home, I fell asleep before he did!

The stitches came out the following Monday, and it looks like his lip is healing up nicely. The horizontal bruises that the shelves had left on his legs and torso have almost disappeared, too. And I've already steered him away from the shelves one more time. At what point do these become learing experiences?