Friday, February 09, 2007

Seeing Red....

So...I'm on the phone downstairs in the office. The children (Hannah having the day off yet AGAIN due to "early release" of elementary, meaning Kindergarten is NOT in session...half-days suck...but I digress) are upstairs, presumably watching TV and playing, judging from the sounds I hear.

I'm discussing things with Nadia, the 1st Sgt.'s wife, about FRG stuff (for you non-Army folk, that's Family Readiness Group).

All of a sudden, from upstairs, I hear Scotty's little voice: I red....I reeeedddddd. I RED. I'm thinking he's gotten ahold of a marker yet again and has colored his hands, or whatever. But there is a tone in his voice that urges me upstairs to verify that he's okay. He's had a fever and a headache for 2 days, so I want to be sure it's nothing. I head up stairs....he is standing on his stool in the bathroom, with red all around his mouth and on his hands...and he's looking awfully scared.

As I approach, I realize it's not marker...it's BLOOD. Poor little man! It's so darned dry in here (humidity is below 40% now, at the "VERY DRY" mark on our barometer) and he got a nosebleed. I've never had to deal with that with Hannah. He looked so forlorn. He had NO idea what was wrong. I didn't want him to panic, so I sat him down and tried to keep him calm...and in comes Hannah and she FREAKS out, causing Scotty to panic as well. I sent Hannah on her way and worked on keeping him calm, got him calmed down and tried to figure out just what happened and where he was.

The saddest part of the day was hearing that little voice, "I RED!"....sigh.

5 comments:

Christy said...

Time to get humidifiers. I don't think since having kids we've ever lived without one or two. Our apartment that we lived in on post when Jacob was little had one built into the furnace, which was really nice, when we moved into our house on post it didn't though so we bought a new one and already had one from when Jordyn was alive.

You've done pretty good if this is the first bloody nose in 6 yrs of child raising! We've had more than our fair share, Jack's already had a few since living here! Our problem is we can't buy the filters over here, so I have to have my mom send me some.

God bless

Unknown said...

That poor little thing!! My daughter used to get them all the time. I hope this isn't a reoccurence! Poor thing!

Catherine said...

I can't imagine needing humidifiers, we run dehumidifiers around here.
I do seem to recall one of my children had a fair few nosebleeds, until the doctor cauterized the offending blood vessel (sometimes they are very close to the skin and easily ruptured).
Here from Michele's

rennratt said...

Ah! Is he ok?

I can not imagine how you held it together. I would have freaked out.

I can handle vomit. But blood? Not so much.

Sue said...

He must be commiserating with auntie Sue who has been having nosebleeds on a regular basis from advil of all things..........it is the only thing that works on my tennis elbow pain....poor baby -- I know "I" freak out when it starts, can't imagine how he and you felt :(