Ouch

I was on my way upstairs this afternoon to wait by the front door for Franny's school bus and the phone rang. It was Kyrsten returning my call and we had just started talking when Bobby said, "Katherine? I need you." I said quietly, "Bobby, I'm on the phone." And then Bobby replied in a commanding voice, "Katherine, I NEED YOU." So I finish walking up the stairs and see him feeling the back of his head with a bloody hand, and a thick trickle of blood coming down his neck and dripping onto the front of his shirt. I quickly got off the phone and thought about what to do. Franny's bus would be arriving in about ten minutes and Sophie was due to wake from her nap anytime after that. Thankfully we have awesome next door neighbors who are always willing to help if they can. My neighbor Amanda gets home from work early on Wednesdays and she happened to be outside, so I asked her to wait for Franny's bus and keep an eye on Sophie so I could rush Bobby to the Emergency Room. I might add that Bobby was amazingly calm during this whole ordeal. No hint of panic or distress in his voice or his body language.

We sat in the waiting room for less than two minutes before we were seen by Bobby's favorite ER doc. Two staples in his head and we were out of there! On the way home we were talking about how nice it was that we didn't have to take the girls with us. I wasn't going to look as they stapled his head shut, but I was curious so I turned around and saw the fourth year medical student following Dr. Elam pointing a staple gun at Bobby's head gangster style and couldn't help but feel grateful that the girls weren't there to see it. I love having good neighbors.

I asked Bobby if it hurt having his head stapled. (He didn't want to waste time getting any medicine to help with the pain.) He said it felt like getting your ears pierced. I said, "How would you know, you've never had your ears pierced!" And just as I said it, a memory started to surface from about 11 years ago. It was all coming back to me when Bobby said, "Yes I have! I let Janelle practice on me when she got that job at Claire's!" I was sharing a room with Janelle, one of my best friends from college, and she had in fact just been hired at Claire's. She was feeling pretty anxious about using an ear-piercing gun and Bobby offered his ear for practice. He wore that earring in his ear for one day before taking it out. I remember he picked me up from my job at the Marriott that day with an earring in his ear. I'll be honest, I'm not crazy about that look on him. Maybe that's why I blocked it out.

Oh, I almost forgot to explain what happened to Bobby. He's been working so hard this week. We're having a garage sale this week and he has been going through every closet and dejunking drawers and organizing everything. It's been really nice. He spent all day organizing the garage and this afternoon he knocked a few rolls of paper towels onto the floor. The floor of the garage was wet, so he bent over to pick them up and when he stood up, he knocked the edger down and it hit him on the head.