Tonight Ana reached a milestone I had hoped we wouldn’t experience for several years, if at all. She had her first visit to the Emergency Room. As we do every evening, I placed Ana in her Bumbo on the counter while I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. However tonight, in her even increasing physical prowess, she managed to push her legs or arch her back or twist just right (it all happened so fast it was hard to tell) that the Bumbo flipped over and Ana fell off the counter and on to the wood floor. I ran over, grabbed her up and and quickly looked her over to make sure she was ok. I was instantly relieved to find her conscious and with no major injuries. Then I braced myself for the scream that was to come. And did it come.

I hugged my poor screaming baby like my life depended on it. By that time Simeon had run into the kitchen and he promptly went into “protective Daddy mode” to make sure everyone was ok. I leaned Ana back to let Sim look her over and instantly panicked when I realized there was blood on my shirt. We looked Ana over and discovered a small amount of blood coming from inside her mouth. We quickly realized she must have bitten her lip when she fell (damn those two and a half teeth!) and grabbed her an ice pack to put on her mouth. Thankfully, the bleeding stopped just about as quickly as it started.

Once I calmed down a little bit and stopped shaking, I told Sim to call the pediatrician to see if we should take her in to the emergency room, or at the very least what we should do to make her feel better. Not knowing exactly what hit the ground when she fell, I had to assume the worst and instantly thought of a brain injury. While Sim searched for the pediatrician number, I did everything in my power to soothe Ana, all the while still looking her over for signs of pain. Finally she started to calm down and we noticed a red bump forming on her forehead. While she was screaming her entire face was red and the bump was indistinguishable, but with her normal color back the red lump was quite menacing and very obvious.

Finally we got a hold of the on call doctor who asked a myriad of questions and deduced that based on the height of the fall and the size of the bump we should take Ana in to the Emergency Room. So we grabbed her blankie and an ice pack bear and loaded her into the car. She was pretty exhausted by this point and kept trying to fall asleep. Thoughts of concussions still in our heads, we decided to keep her awake and did so the only way we knew how–by singing the Gilmore Girls theme song (her current favorite) over and over.

By the time we got to the E.R. she was already looking a million times better and starting to act like her normal self. In fact, during the course of our visit she giggled and flirted with the admitting doctor, played peek-a-boo with a nurse, and tried to grab every stethoscope she could find. After giving her a thorough exam, she was deemed fit to leave the E.R. and we were given instructions of things to watch for in the next 24 hours.

I know these things happen, and I am sure some of you will think we overreacted and you may be right. However, we were following our doctor’s orders and trying to do what was best for our daughter. I know if we hadn’t taken her in, I would have made myself sick worrying about what might be wrong with her and what I could have done to help make her better. My daughter is the most important thing to me and taking care of her is my number one priority. Besides, if she is going to be anything like her mischievous daredevil parents, this is just the first of MANY trips to the Emergency Room for the Bateman family.