Bumps, Bruises and Blood

The life we lead as parents is constantly full of surprises but no matter how hard you try to be prepared you're never quite ready to wake up to, "Hey Dad, check out all the blood on my hands!" followed by Jeff saying, "Oh my--wait! Have you seen your face yet!?"

Let me back up. A few days ago Natalie started getting these mosquito bite looking bumps on her arms and legs. I immediately assumed they were just spider bites and washed all her blankets, sheets, pj's, etc. but the next morning she had more (31 over her whole body to be exact). This should have been my first clue that the next few days were going to be... interesting.



Last night after the kids and I got back from my Dad's birthday party Jeff and I threw them in the tub (let me rephrase that: we ran water and they got in the tub themselves in a timely fashion). As we were washing Natalie up, I showed Jeff all the "bumps" on her body and we agreed that we should take her in to the doctor today. As we are examining Natalie's sores, Jack tries to stand up in the water and slips and crashes his little chin on the side of the tup which instantly bruises his little face and blood fills the inside of his mouth. Well, that's two of em' with injuries now. Jeff gets Jack out of the tub and applies a bag of frozen veggies to his face as I take care of the other two finishing their baths. We finally get them all tucked in their beds, say prayers, and call it a night. Or so we thought.



Apparently in the middle of the night Jack comes in our room to tell us that Carter's on the floor. I say "apparently" because I didn't wake up for this, Jack always goes to Jeff's side of the bed (God bless that little boy) so Jeff got up to check. Sure enough, Jeff could barely see in the dark room that Carter was in fact on the floor and Jeff just scooped him up and laid him back in his bed, left the light off and went back to bed. Well...this morning is when Carter woke us up with the whole, "Hey Dad, check out all the blood on my hands!" bit. We found out (after a little detective work) that Carter fell out of his bed, hit the side of his forehead on the bookcase, it started bleeding, but never woke up during the whole ordeal. So, this morning as I'm examining Jack's bruise and Natalie's "bumps" (which, after going to the doctor we find out aren't bites at all but is apparently a skin/staph infection... yeah, nice huh?) we get to examine not only the cut on Carter head, but the blood covering his floor, blanket and whole bed... not to mention his face.



I sort of feel like I should have an honorary Nursing degree after this week. Like I said before, life as parents is constantly full of surprises, but hopefully after this week we can keep the "injury" surprises to a minimum.