I'll take the drink with rum in it, please

Little Bit and I went over to a friend's house on Sunday for a playdate with her almost 4-year old boy. Another friend dropped off her 4-year old boy. And my friend has a 6 month old boy. Can you say chaos? The kids had lots of fun, though. We went into the backyard so the boys could play on the large playset. The set was almost too large and out of scale for him, but Lil' Bit had fun climbing the ladder (with Mom's help to steady him) and sliding down the slide. After we all went inside, my friend began to make lunch for us. I took the opportunity to take a potty break.

As I walked back into the kitchen, I see that the back door is open and Little Bit and my friend's son were not inside anymore. Hrmmm, I thought, I wouldn't have let them into the backyard without being right there, but my friend thought she could watch them out the window. The next instant I heard Little Bit screaming/crying, and it was that "I'm hurt" serious cry that stops a mom's heart. I ran outside to find him lying in the ruins of a shattered plastic wagon, with cuts and blood all over his face. I scooped him up and ran back inside. His lower lip was bleeding and starting to swell. I checked over his wounds as I tried to clean them.

Evidently, the plastic wagon had gotten brittle by being outside in the sun for months on end. It was lying on its side, when Little Bit had fallen with his full weight on it. The side of the wagon had shattered into jagged pieces of plastic. There were scratches on the bridge of his nose and under/around his right eye. He came *very* close (way too close) to cutting his eye.

Little Bit had calmed down within about 5-10 minutes and was happily munching away on hot dogs. Meanwhile, I was saying, "That took a couple years off my life!" The cuts were mostly pretty shallow, but poor Little Bit's face looked like he had had an argument with a cat. He got lots of sympathy from the teachers at daycare when he returned. Today, the cuts look much more healed and less red.

My friend felt just awful about it. But you certainly don't expect a plastic wagon to shatter like that. It could have also happened when we were right there next to the playset. My friend's husband commented that he had gone to the ER as a boy for a lot more serious things than cuts on his face.

Yes, I had a nice drink with dinner later. :-)