Since Cohen became mobile Alisa and I have been wondering just how long our family would go without a trip to the hospital for stitches. I think we were close last year when he cracked his head on the tile floor downstairs. But we’ve been holding our breaths waiting for the day – and now it has come.
Yesterday Cohen did a little finger painting. Naturally he ended up with paint all over his body (I helped him smear it as any good dad would do). Rather than mopping the paint off him Alisa wisely decided to drop him into the bathtub and to just rinse him down. Now Cohen hasn’t really been in a “shower” before as he loves his baths. So he was quite a bit nervous at first. After a little while he seemed to accept it and actually begin to enjoy it – tapping his hands nervously on his body while standing just inside the water’s range. Since he was clean and getting more comfortable, Alisa jumped out to the living room to grab his towel. That’s when she (and I downstairs) heard the dreaded **THUMP**.
Cohen tells us that he started enjoying the shower so much he decided to twirl around in the falling water – who wouldn’t? He forgot about how slippery the tub can be when wet, and slipped, falling chin-first on the top edge of the tub. Warning – images follow that might be hard to see for those that don’t like looking at blood …
My first look into my son’s chin where I could see the fat layer as little white globules … a true Kodak moment (that we never captured with a camera of course). It seemed to my untrained eye that it would need stitching, as it kept opening up every time he turned his head. Off to emerg!
Alisa spent a couple of hours waiting for the doctor to see him. They decided glue wouldn’t work so they went with 3 stitches.
Cohen has been incredibly brave about the whole thing. In particular he seems to enjoy unwrapping any new bandages we have to put on his chin. Let’s hope he continues to soldier through this, and that he hasn’t been turned off showers for the rest of his life.