You know there's a problem...

When you get to Preschool and one of the teachers pulls you inside, holding a backpack, but no Q. "Q's mom? Q is in the nurse's office..."

Evidently Q was wrestling with another child, I hope playfully, when they rolled off the wood chips onto the black top, where Q's head made contact. Loud enough that Miss K heard it. When she asked if she could take a look under his coat's hood, the formerly stoic Q, burst into tears.

When I got there, not long after, Q was in freeze out mode. He'll answer some questions, but only the ones he deems necessary. "What happened?" is not one of them. "Does it hurt?" is always answered with 'no.'

It's funny to me that this is Q's second remarkable head injury at preschool. Third if we count when Miss Wendy hit him in the face with a wiffle ball. In normal home life, injuries are pretty rare. Does he just play harder at preschool? The fact that I find it unusual that my kid has been to the nurse's office 2 times in 2 years perhaps indicates how few injuries we've had to endure.

I don't like to overreact, and Q hates to be messed with. So instead of going to the pediatrician's office right away, we opt to go home, have our scheduled playdate, and see how much blood keeps coming.



Well, at bath time (not the one pictured above, but they all basically look like that), I took a wash cloth and gently checked out the injury with just warm water. Oozy. I decide to call the pediatrician's office before they close. I meant to only ask advice, but they tell me to bring him right in. Armed with jammies, firefighter boots, and bedtime books, we enter the office to find the place deserted. We're seen right away and Quinn gets what they call a 'Glue-it' - basically a bit of something like glue that seals the injury shut. Like stitches, without any. Nifty. Q is good as gold. He moves back into freeze out mode, but cooperates.

On the way home, he asks me, "Mom, why do they ring the bell and say, 'All hands on deck!' at Trader Joe's?"

More and more we see a bond between the kids that we're just in awe of. Tuesday night we settled in to read bedtime stories. Q snuggles under the covers and says to Noodle, "Noodle, do you want to sit here next to me?" Ohhhh yes. She ditches her usual throne (the lap of the reader) and joins Q under the covers.