X-ray, Wash it out, Stitches

Dylan got stitches 10 days ago. She stepped up onto a balloon next to the heater in our living room and slipped off - catching herself on the heater - and slicing open her hand. I called Jason to come home from parent-teacher conferences (sorry J) to stay with Noah - there was no way in hell I was taking both kids with me to the ER at 4pm with Dylan bleeding everywhere (not to mention Noah was still sleeping, so I would have had to wake him up). Long story short, we were there 7.5 hours - from 4pm until 11:30pm. It was lots and lots and lots and lots of waiting.

But now to the real point of my post. It's been so fascinating watching/listening to Dylan process this experience. It was very traumatic for her in the ER. She was on a hospital bed laying there for 7.5 hours!! Yes, I was there, and thank you Paul Gottlieb Nipkow - we watched an insane amount of PBS kids Sprout TV. But what did she want to do the whole time she wasn't occupied with Angelina Ballerina? She wanted to hear stories. Stories of me getting hurt as a child. And when I ran out of stories (that was pretty quickly...if you know how good I am at remembering things) I was supposed to make them up! Using all my real family as a child, in my real life, but totally fabricated stories. Essentially, she wanted ME to get hurt standing on a balloon by the heater - or some other equally freakish accident.

Now let me just take a moment to put in a word for my creativity. I think I'm pretty creative...I mean I wouldn't have majored in Graphic Design if I didn't...right? But golly-gee-willikers. After 20 minutes of telling made-up get hurt stories, I was plum out of ideas. But she wanted to do this for 7 hours! It was incredible how she would never get tired of hearing the same story-line over and over again. And if it didn't resemble her situation enough, she would tell me how the plot should go. "First you have to get an x-ray, then you have to wash it out, then you get stitches." See, that was exactly what we were doing.

Fast forward 10 days. Today we got out her stitches at the pediatrician's office. It wasn't too terrible for the 20 minutes we were in there. But the anticipation was brutal. We had several meltdowns just thinking about it all. So, once again, her typical kid coping mechanism - telling stories - putting me as the hurt one - and she is more in control.

If any parent out there hasn't read Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen, I highly reccomend it. It talks about just this. Children go through experiences that they need to "play out" later. So while I was cringing as we played doctor for the 10th day straight...I understood why. You got something good there Dr. Cohen.