The Boy Gets Sewn Up

We had our first trip to the Emergency Room with Jackson late yesterday afternoon. He was playing down in his sister's room when he sat down on a glass vase and cut his legs up. He had two small cuts on his left thigh, and two cuts on his right calf muscle. Three of the cuts were pretty minor, but one on the calf had carved up a small chunk of muscle, and kept oozing blood even after we put pressure on it for a while.

I wasn't sure if a clinic would do stitches, so we went ahead and took him to the ER at Summit. Fortunately, they weren't very busy and took him back pretty quickly and the doctor looked at it about 10 minutes after we got there. He decided that the cut would need some stitches plus they wanted to take a X-ray to make sure there was no glass in it.

The X-ray was not fun, since we had a hard time making him hold his leg still enough to take three shots. Then the nurse came in and put something on a cotton ball and taped it over the wound to deaden the area. After about 15 minutes, the doctor came in with an EMT that was helping out that day to do the stitches.

It turns out the cotton ball was just to lightly deaden the area so the doctor could inject more stuff to really deaden it up. Marissa was holding Jack's chest, I was holding his thighs, and the EMT was holding his feet. This part was just terrible. When the doctor stuck the needle in Jack started screaming at the top of his lungs and bucking all over the place. His face turned beet red and he kept saying "Daddy are! Daddy are! Daddy are!" Jack was crying, Marissa was crying, I was crying, and the EMT didn't look very happy either. The doctor, who looked to be in his late 50's, was completely unconcerned and put the three stitches in very quickly.

On the way home, we got Jack ice cream and potato chips, so he cheered up pretty quickly. We also got him some band-aids with the characters from Cars on it, so he was pretty happy about that and made Marissa put a few extra ones on him. Marissa and I were nervous wrecks the rest of the evening, and I don't think either of us slept very well.

Our Little Book Worm

So almost every night, I give Jack his bath, get him dried off, and then into his pajamas. Then I read 2 or 3 books with him in my lap and tag up with Mommy who reads him another book or two and rocks him for a bit before she puts him in his crib with some soft music playing and his blanket, duck, and whatever else happens to be in there, usually including a book or two.

Last night we went through this whole process and then headed back downstairs as usual. I'm sitting on the couch with the laptop and Marissa is watching TV in the next room, with the baby monitor next to her. After about half an hour she says "Go upstairs and check on Jackson, I swear I can hear pages turning."

I'm dubious about this, but I go up the stairs, open the door, and duck inside. There's almost no light in the room, just a little from a small night light and maybe a little from outside through the blinds. I go up to the crib and there's Jack, leaning against the back of the crib with a book in his lap and his pacifier in his mouth, turning the pages. He gives me a look that basically said "What?"

His eyes are drooping and you can tell he's just about asleep, but he's still sitting there trying to read. Marissa came up to take a look as well, and read him one more book and rocked him again before he finally went to sleep for the night.

He's just been obsessed with them lately and he probably has about 200 books already in his collection. I'm so proud of him. He's a book nut just like his Daddy and Nana.

Finding Jacko

Here's the boy dressed up as Nemo for Halloween.

Happy Birthday Marissa

Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife, Marissa!

She's 29 years old today! Woo hoo! I'm so lucky to have such a young wife. Yowza! We managed to score a baby sitter tomorrow night so we're going to eat at her favorite restaurant, Sakura.

Last night we took Jack and Victoria to "Trunk or Treat" at a local church. Jack figured out the whole "grab candy and stick in the bucket" concept very quickly. Once again everyone loved his Nemo outfit. It has a little tail that shakes back and forth when he walks. At one point there was a swimming pool full of plastic eggs with candy in them. He saw his cousin Brynn in there grabbing candy so he ran up and rolled over the side and started grabbing it himself. I had to go "fish" him out of there. Har, har.

In other news back home, long time friend and cousin Heff also celebrates a birthday today. He's 40 years old! Wow! Hard to believe he made it this far. I think he's going to braid his James Spann Hair Island for the event today. I've also heard his office in Columbiana has been vandalized in celebration of the event. No pictures yet though.

Help Me

Well, God has a sense of humor I suppose. That's the only way to explain that my son is likely going to be an athlete. The boy spends all day throwing balls around the house. It's his favorite word, and he's getting to be a pretty good shot on the mini basketball goal we bought him. What's a non-sport playing, geeky father to do?

Last night when I put him in his crib, I left a small rubber basketball in the crib with him, which he was cradling next to him when I tucked him in. This morning, he woke us up over the monitor saying "Ball! Ball! Ball!" over and over again, where he usually just starts off babbling or saying "Daddy!" until someone comes and gets him.

I'm so pitiful I didn't even know what the game of "Horse" means for basketball until Marissa explained it to me. Jack basically plays Horse by himself, and moves to different positions around the living room to throw the ball towards the hoop. He even crouches down and shoots the ball up with a fling on the wrists like real basketball players do. For an 18 month old, he has a pretty good technique, or so I've been told.