David is trying so hard to be a good big brother. But sometimes, despite his best attempts, his brothers can get the best of him. Today has been one of those days.
David was outside, swinging on our swing, minding his own business. From inside the house Michelle and I hear this blood-curteling scream, a sure indication of actually injury and pain. We race to the back door to see David holding his mouth and blood dripping all over!
"What happened?" I asked David. "Aleky...hit me...in the mouth." sobbs David in reply. This is obvioulsy perplexing, how could Aleky hit David to cause such trauma?
Michelle heads in the house to get a rag to cover the bleeding and I head for Aleky who thinks the park will over some sort of protection as he flees the scene of the crime. After several minutes the bleeding stops and Aleky is release from time-out and we finally think we've determined what actually happened.
As far as we can determine, David was swinging on the swing. Aleky was playing with his nerf sword (that he received from his Uncle Tristram for Christmas). This sword is missing the soft tip (due to some misguided teeth, prior to the accident) and has a pvc pipe through the center of sword which is now exposed. As David was swinging Aleky though he would hit this moving target with the sword. Not having success in stopping the swinging David, Aleky backed up and just threw the sword at David (we suspect). This airborne projectile's exposed pvc pipe hits a forward swinging David causing a fairly deep laceraction, lots of pain and blood.
Normally we wouldn't have been to worried about the laceration except that it nearly went through David's bottom lip. Although the bleeding had stopped we couldn't decide if this wound needed medical attention. In the end, because is was deep and on his face, we decided that it would be better to get it stitched up so it wouldn't be a huge wound (scar) later on.
Michelle finished getting dinner on the table, boys fed (including Quinten) and takes David to the hospital. I stay home and get the boys ready for bed. Little did we know it would take about 3 hours before he would finally see a doctor and get his 6 stitches. Had we known that from the beginning I would have gone and Michelle would have taken care of the other boys.
I was at school taking a test. Fortunately, I was able to race home after the test to get David to school only 30 minutes late. We postponed our family presentation for later in the morning when we could all arrive and be presentable. His presentation included a quick introduction of everyone and an explanation about his stitches ("My brother Aleky beat me up!"). The class was proud of David's stitches and at least 6 other students had to tell about their injuries that had previously received. We just felt bad that he had stitches and a fat lip during his special VIP week at school. (The swords have all been confiscated until further notice)
We feel quite fortunate to have some wonderful friends. We were able to borrow a roto-tiller to get the soil mixed and ground tilled and ready for planting. Actually, this is just the tilled part. We still have to make the rows, lay down the watering system and get support fencing installed before we're really ready for this growing season.
