Owie of the Year

(Sorry about the orientation of this picture. For some reason even when I rotate it and save it,

it flips back to this orientation when I insert it here)

Let's hope this is the worst owie any of us get this year and that we're now done with owies for a while. Gavin's a general healthy kid and we're slightly over-protective parents. He's pretty coordinated, but he's had his share of tumbles, bumps, and scrapes! Let's take a look back...

2009: He rolled off my bed when he was maybe 6 months old and landed on our carpeted bedroom floor (no injuries)
2010: He fell down about 8 wooden stairs from the main floor of our house to the basement landing (no injuries)
2011: Tumbled down the limestone garden steps at daycare and got a big scuff across his face, from one eyebrow, across his face, to his chin.

and now, for the worst (let's hope!) owie of 2012...

Tuesday, February 7, 2012: Rolled off my exercise ball in our basement and bumped his chin on the concrete basement floor, splitting his chin right open!

This little peanut was a real tough guy. He only cried for about 30 seconds while I carried him upstairs to take a look and give him an ice pack. As I carried him up, I didn't even realize yet that he was bleeding and just thought he had bumped his chin. When I got him to the kitchen and set him on the counter so I could take a look, that's when I saw all of the blood. I layed him on the couch, wiped his chin off with a wet paper towel and held our Elmo boo-boo buddy ice pack on it.

I took these two pictures on my phone and sent them to Cliff to see what he thought. After a few text and email exchanges between us, our doctor and a few other people we know (the kind of people who are good to know when you're trying to determine if someone need stitches) it was determined that he needed to go in to the clinic and possibly get stitched up. As it turned out he got glued instead of stitched. Boy, was he a trooper! I explained to him on the way into the clinic that the doctor might want to sew his owie closed with a needle and thread and he said very matter of factly, "it will hurt for a little while and then it will feel better". He was so brave! It was our family doctor's day off, so we saw a doctor we hadn't met before. Gavin was so cooperative and made me so proud. There were no complaints, no tears, just a very brave boy.

It's been two weeks and his poor little chin is looking great! Let's hope this is our last big owie for the year and that all we'll have for the next 10 months is a few little bruises and scrapes.