Birthday Season is over for the month and we survived!
We not only survived, we thrived! The twins turned five and M got another year older and exponentially wiser.
Celebrating half of the family’s birthdays in 48 hours only had one small glitch…Elisabeth’s chin.
In this picture the neon bandage blends in nicely with the girls’ cacophony of brightly-colored shirts. In real life, that orange bandage is securing the three stitches she got on her birthday eve.
Blame it on her excitement to take her Grandma and Papa to Benihana. The anticipation of watching chefs fling carrots at her (as rumored in her PreK class) made her move a little too fast when getting out of the car before we left for the restaurant.
Yes, you read that right: getting out of the car. Because it’s just not a Hergenrader Dinner out unless we get in and out of the minivan several times (“I need water! I have to go potty! Where’s a book for me to read in the car?!”) On one such trip back inside, Elisabeth tripped over her cowboy boots or the diaper bag or her brother (we’re not entirely sure) and her chin met the concrete garage floor. M scooped her up, checked out the gash on her chin, announced it was stitches-deep, and we all piled out of the car so he could take her to the ER.
Because if there’s one thing this mom and dad know, it’s when to head straight to the Emergency Room. We have lightening-fast decision-making skills when it comes to deciding whether a cut will close on its own or needs a surgeon. This one was just deep enough that stitches were a definite must.
And you’d think that stitches would be a bummer for a girl the night before her big pool party.
Not this girl. Elisabeth was thrilled to have her daddy all to herself at the ER for hours and hours of playing on his phone and coloring a Princess book. It was the best birthday present she could imagine: right in the hubbub of Birthday Party season, she and daddy had a “date.” The Gatorade they gave her at Texas Children’s was even better than mediocre Chinese food cooked in front of a live audience.
AND she joined the Hergenrader Stitches Club (not nearly as exclusive as it should be). Catie had two stitches when our dog bit her, Sam had four last summer when he cut his heel, and Elisabeth is right in the middle with three.
As she pointed out, Nate just needed to get one stitch for us to be in full-stitch alignment.
Which is excellent timing since his birthday is only a month away.
