Another Summer Another E.R. Trip

It wouldn't be a summer for the Hibbits family without Mia making a trip to the emergency room. Each year it is a few weeks earlier and a little less severe. I am hopeful that next summer will be incident free. (Fingers crossed!)

July 24, 2007 Mia trips at the park and has a lateral break on her femur. Full body cast.

July 4, 2008 Mia jumps off the 3 ft. pool ladder onto the ground and breaks her foot. Waterproof foot cast. June 25, 2009 Mia decides to cut her own cheese and...

So a few weeks ago I got my cutco knives sharpened. If you are not familiar with cutco let me tell you that they are the sharpest knives ever! I barely put my finger against the end and I bleed. The day after I got the knives back I cut some cheese for Emma. I, being a bad mom, left it on the counter while I played a game with Justin. I was only a few feet away, but my back was to the counter. Mia decided that she wanted some too and helped herself. (Her favorite phrase is "I can do it MYSELF!") She screams and runs up to me and taps my shoulder. Blood is literally running down my arm and all over the floor. Justin grabs a napkin and I squeeze it around her finger. My hands are dripping with blood. After a minute I tried to take a peek, but blood just pours out and I can't see anything. This happens every time I check over the next 45-60 minutes. I hold her finger and call the nurse to see if I can bring her in to the doctor or if I have to go to the ER. Eventually I am told to take her to the ER. We have Kaiser so the ER is about 25 minutes away. I drop off Emma and Justin at my sister's house on the way. Still bleeding. Side note, Mia cried at first for a couple minutes. I asked her if it hurt or if she was scared and she said scared. She only cried after that when I cried, Emma cried and when they cleaned her finger.

We get to the ER and they unwrap her finger. It has stopped bleeding and doesn't look too bad. We get a room and the doctor comes in. He looks at it and her chart. He asks me to tell him about her other injuries and asks if I know why. I say yes and tell him about the last two years. I say "usually she gets hurt in July, but we are trying get done early this year." No laugh. He looks at me and says I seem alright, but he wants to know how a three year old is using a knife. He has a three year old and doesn't understand. I explain what happened and Mia had already told him she cut herself with a knife. I am a little confused by the doctor. I know Mia is independent, but I guess I assumed she was pretty normal. Not compared to his kid. I explain that she has a really high pain tolerance and he says that is good. I tell him it isn't because that is how she often gets in trouble. Nothing hurts so she never stops and has no fear. Later he glues her finger to hold it together. I ask if she can still go in the ocean. "Ocean? She goes in the ocean?" I say yes, she loves to boogie board. "What? She boogie boards? What beach? My kid barely can go in a pool by herself." Now I am the one giving him funny looks.

Perhaps I should let her keep her protective turtle shell on all the time.