1st Urgent Care visit of 2011... check

Well, that's one thing I can knock off my to-do list! This afternoon we ended up in Urgent Care for a couple of hours with none other than Kate (who else?), who fell over in the JCPenney portrait studio and put her teeth through her lip. There was a lot of blood, but she handled it well! She really didn't cry for very long, and she hasn't said anything about it hurting even though it is clearly quite sore.

So, here's how today went. Please note that I have been fighting off a migraine all day, so that makes what is to follow ten times worse (and probably explains the whole car park incident...)

10am: Leave house to run errands.

10:30am: First stop. Smash Jeff's sunglasses case by dropping the boot of the car on it. Sunglasses miraculously survive. I have no explanation for why Jeff's sunglasses suddenly appeared under the boot as I closed it. Didn't even see them until I heard the crunch.

11am:2nd stop, JCPenney portrait studio, for Nicholas' 9month pictures. I have timed the appointment perfectly for when he is happy and not hungry, but not only are they running late (how is this possible when the studio is empty when I arrive?) but the white backdrop I need is filthy and closer to dark grey with black spots, and by the time they have fiddled about trying to cover up the acres of dirt Nicholas is both hungry and tired, and refuses to cooperate. So I can pick between cute dirty pictures or grumpy clean pictures.

12pm: While picking between my pictures, I hear a wail. I ignore it. I am trying to get out of there as fast as possible. I don't turn around until I hear Adam say 'She's bleeding, Mum.' I spent the rest of the day feeling guilty about this.

Kate had fallen over somehow and there was blood running down on her chin. My first thought was that she had bitten her lip on the inside, so I have a look, and she has. It's deep. And then I see that there is a deep cut on the outside too, and I just know that it's going to need to be looked at.

12:30pm. Our first attempt to leave the mall. I know exactly where I have parked, between Sears and Target, but when we leave through Sears I cannot get to my car. There is a wall in the way. We go back in to the mall.

12:45pm Our second attempt to leave the mall. We leave through Target. Inexplicably, another (different) wall is in the way. I know exactly where my car is, but I cannot get to it.

1pm: Our third attempt to leave the mall. We go out through Sears again. The wall is still there.

1:15pm We leave the mall via the second floor, which at some point stops being the second floor and becomes the ground, because there is my car, exactly where I left it. I get quite cross with Adam for suggesting that we have finally 'found our car' because I knew all along where it was. There were just lots of walls in the way. I know this makes me sound really, really stupid, but I will never understand how you can park at street level, go in at street level, and have to go upstairs to get out. To street level.

1:45pm Arrive at Urgent Care. Sit in a corridor waiting to be seen, with a double stroller and two hungry kids. Are you having fun yet? Me neither. It would have been so much worse if I had not dropped Adam and Ellie off with Megan first... we would have made the evening news if I had had to do this with all four kids!

2:45 We get called back. They take her temperature and kick us out to the corridor again.

3:15 We are seen by the doctor, who is super nice and really good with Kate. She gets her lip glued and taped shut.

3:20pm. Doctor leaves the room.

3:21pm Kate rips off the tape.

3:25pm Doctor back in the room, says don't bother with the tape, it's not going to work. Glue is still on.

4pm All back home, glue is hanging half off and I am about ready to go out to Home Depot and buy some superglue and fix it myself.



Here's a picture of Kate with her split lip. Though I tell you what, I should have taken a picture of myself and posted it, because after a couple of hours in Urgent Care hot and frazzled with a pounding headache and having been puked on by Nicholas twice, and with blood all over my shirt from the initial incident, I looked far, far worse than she did!

I have prescribed myself an ice-cold drink and a day off from laundry. And if you made it this far, you should know that really I just needed to get this all off my chest somewhere! Sometimes ranting into cyberspace is just what a girl needs to calm down.