This morning, as I was getting out of the shower, my daughter yells to me that she is playing hospital with her toys. All I can think is "Uh-Oh", what inspired this so I start asking questions. Are you hurt? Nope, she's fine. Is one of your toys broken? Nope.
When I joined her, I found the inspriation...she was watching the Dr. Daisy, MD episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Unfortunately, playing hospital ended up being prophetic. This afternoon while I was trying to setup our new DSL modem, she was spinning in our office chair and hit her head on the desk. She had a cut on her eyebrow and a huge knot formed almost immediately. Fortunately, this happened at 4:55p so I had time to get through to the nurse line at the pediatrician's office before closing time. They recommended that I take her to either the ER or urgent care, however urgent care wouldn't do stitches if they were needed.
We opted to go to the hospital, since they have a pediatric ER and are used to dealing with children. Ironically, I was concerned about the swelling and any underlying damage and was not overly concerned about the laceration. When the doctors looked at it, the swelling was not an issue and the laceration needed stitches.
My daughter was a champ at the hospital. She held a washcloth with an ice cube to her face on the way to the hospital. She explained what happened to all of the staff who asked. She let them look at it and poke her with a minimum of fuss. She did allow her fear of band-aids to show through when they tried to use one to hold on a cotton ball with numbing solution. They tried taping it on, but in the end we went back to the band aid. The stitches were a little rough, but as soon as it was done, she was fine.
After we were done, all she wanted to do was eat at the hospital cafeteria and get pizza. She was starving and ate quite a bit for dinner.
On the plus side, our trip got us out of helping my sister move. We stopped by to see her new place after dinner. Then came the challenge of stopping at Meijer & convincing her to let us buy magic stickers (aka band-aids) to cover the stitches. On the way, she decided Tinker Bell Band-Aids would be ok to match her new nightgown. Well, of course that wasn't an option. She settled for Hello, Kitty band aids. After a bath, she allowed me to put one on without a fuss.
So, now we need a new rule. No playing "hospital". What other games should I ban?
