November 01, 2007

Maybe We SHOULD Have Gone Trick-or-Treating...

Ted and I have decided not to "do" Halloween with our family. We do church festivals instead, and I have no problem with our kids dressing up. But for various reasons we have chosen to skip the whole Halloween scene. So we went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner last night instead:

A) It was something fun and special for us to share
B) We had free coupons for our 2 birthday kids that expired at the end of October
C) It got us out of the house during some of the Trick-or-Treating hours.

The restaurant was very quiet. We had a whole section to ourselves. However, we were still trying to impress upon our children that just because it's a buffet-style restaurant doesn't mean they are allowed to wander at will. After returning with my yummy potato rosemary soup and apple cinnamon muffin, I once again told the kids they needed to stay in their seats. Arden, who was finished with his meal and entertaining Kenna in the stroller, moved to obey, tripped over his bulky tennis shoes, and landed head first into my chair.

Loud wailing ensued. I was sure it was just a bump and tried to calm him down. When he looked up, however, we saw an ugly gash that screamed for attention. We tried icing it a bit, then Ted took Arden to the bathroom to try to clean the wound and get him quiet. A helpful bus boy got us a bandaid, which my kids believe heals just about anything, so that did calm Arden down a bit and bought us some time to finish dinner and decide what to do next.

Well, there really wasn't much of an option; we went home, and then Arden and I made the long drive to the base hospital. (I suppose if I had been going the speed limit, it would have taken about 45 minutes, ahem.) It was about 7:30 p.m. when we left the house. Arden was asleep by about 7:40 p.m. and slept the whole way. I had to carry (actually, lug) him into the ER. Thankfully it was a slow night, so we "enjoyed" our shortest ever visit to the ER, leaving less than an hour later.

Praise the Lord, no stitches were needed. The glue worked fine, though to listen to Arden you would have thought major surgery was involved. I think he was a worse patient for having had a nap on the way--if he had stayed awake, he wouldn't have been so weepy. At any rate, he was a little chatterbox all the way home, so I knew he was doing much better.

6 comments:

Amy Kilpatrick said...

Great, no stitches! What a relief!

Unknown said...

I really miss places like Sweet Tomatoes and Fresh Choice. (Oh, and I'm glad that Arden is okay.)

Amos said...

Whew! That turned out more eventful than planned I'm sure. Glad that no stitches were needed. I'm sure that no more wailing was needed by mom either.

Bob and Claire said...

LOL, a Halloween to remember! You should have tried Chuck E. Cheese, like us (or is there even one of those in LV?)! I'm also glad Arden is okay. Now he can also have the requisite "boy" scar on his forehead. I think all mine have something up there.

Bob and Claire said...

Oh yes, also meant to say that Bob ate at a Sweet Tomatoes for the first time when he was TDY to Denver last month. It sounded yummy!

Anonymous said...

Hey - We started something this year with our kids, and kids from the church. We made up little gift bags with bookmarks and fun things and took them to the local nursing home. The kids were going door to door, but rather than asking for stuff they gave it away! We arranged it ahead of time with the nursing home, and it went great! The kids even dressed up! That was a fun alternative - no guarantees of no head gashes though - there is always that possibility with boys!