Déjà vu

Just another evening in the children's ER. No biggie. Standard fare around here, actually.

The story we got when it happened was that she was running and tripped and hit her head on her dresser. Her room is pretty big, and she's pretty clumsy, so it was easy to believe that she'd picked up enough speed to cause the big gash above her eye.

But the tale she told at the hospital went a little differently. We have some pretty strong drugs to thank for the real story.

"Mommy," she confessed, "I may not have told the whole truth." The drugs that were intended to calm her down in preparation for the arrival of the plastic surgeon were beginning to take effect. Her speech was slurred, her eyes were droopy, and she was getting very honest.
"I wasn't running when I hurt my eye," she explained. "I was jumping off my toy box."

I inquired as to why, hoping to get a little more mileage out of this truth serum they'd injected her with.

"I wanted to see if I could reach my dresser."

Apparently, she can. With her face.

The stitches took mere minutes, and the doctor anticipates only minor scarring. Abby was a champ, and only flinched a little. By the time it was over, she was more than ready for that pink popsicle they'd promised her when we checked in.

And the first question she asked when we got in the car to come home?

"Did I get more stitches than Jacob?"

No, I assured her. The twenty stitches it took to sew his finger back together is more than the seven it took to sew your eyebrow back together.

"So he's still winning?"

Yes, Abby. He's still winning.

I forgot for a moment how competitive she is. This, combined with her knack for crashing into things, does not bode well for our future.