The road to Iwo Jima: Two stitches to I-95

Today is TRAVEL day...loading up the munchkins and hitting the road for the trek to, as the Pumpkin Noodle calls it, "George Washington, D.C." I had planned to relate a few memorable MCM training moments as part of my Flashback Friday series (including a 20-miler in Florida where I got sick from an improper powdered Gatorade-to-water ratio mixture, of my own doing), but my day went tangential when the Bubbaloo took a tumble after school and got a gash on his crown.

By tumble, I mean that instead of climbing out of his car seat to retrieve his favorite tennis ball, which he had dropped during the drive home, he leaned completely forward, from the waist, reaching straight down and as a result, when I stepped back to help him out of the car, he was instead head-down, sneakers-up making that well-known-to-all-toddler-parents intake of breath before releasing it in a bellow of surprise, pain and tears.

Yup. He's two, if you recall, and so ice and distraction were my first instinctual moves. He stopped crying as soon as I daubed his head and, as I was lacking in total situational awareness and he has a decent head of hair, I didn't see the blood, thus, after a quick lunch and a diaper change, he settled merrily into his daily nap. I awakened him almost two hours later to retrieve his sister from school and we all headed over to the park for a playdate with a school friend, him contentedly munching on pretzels and raisins and giving no indication that he'd cut his head open, and me somehow again, failing to notice the coagulated blood matted in his hair on the left and to the rear. However.....

A week prior, at a "Get Messy" party

That would be cornstarch and paint all over him.

Just about 20 minutes into playing, he trotted up asking for more pretzels and the sun glinted off a bright pool of red on the top of his head. I immediately looked to his face for an indicator of what had happened but there was nothing but a grin and a "Pretzel pwease?" I asked him if he had hurt his head and he nodded and said, "Head, ow, crash," before tapping the top of his head, close to where it was bleeding. I grabbed some Boogie Wipes (yes, that's the brand name) and tried to blot up some of the blood so I could see where the cut was. The Bubbaloo was not a fan of this, so turning to the mom next to me I said, "I need to take him home and figure out if I need to go to the doctor or the ER." She said she'd take the Pumpkin Noodle with her daughter for as long as needed and the Bubbaloo and I got into our car and headed home.

From there it was home to try and clean it a bit, but the bleeding didn't abate, so back into the car, to the pediatrician's office, where they worked us in. After some deep cleaning, and some probing, the deep (but mercifully, short) V-shaped cut was identified and the Bubbaloo received two stitches, a dragon sticker, and an appointment to return on Halloween morning to have them removed. (I have a pic, but I'll spare you that.)

So, I got naught for a FBF story today. Instead, here's a pic from the 2004 MCM. Not a good race for me, unfortunately, but I did beat the guy in the Royal Marines shirt and Mr. Big Pecs on the right.

10 years ago....