You should see the other guy!

After I saw Ava off to school this morning, Jace and the little kids and I got around to go meet my Grandmother for breakfast at the restaurant Jace fondly calls "IPOP." After that, we headed for the mall to meet Mara and some of her kids, and while we were wandering around in the Disney store, we saw that all the plush was buy one get one free and that they had Rapunzel from Tangled in their plush Princess doll collection. Ava has been collecting all the Princesses since she was tiny and has many of them, so I wanted to get her Rapunzel, but I didn't see a second doll that she "needed". But then Mara had the bright idea of splitting the cost and getting two Tangled dolls, one for each family. Score! So we both got a doll for the girls' collection for ten bucks, which is a great price.

As we got ready to leave the mall, we split up to head for our cars and my phone rang. It was someone from Ava's school calling, which isn't uncommon...she is famous for getting a bump or bruise or having issues with her asthma and needing to "talk" to me or for me to come get her. But I had never heard Heidi so hurried and serious as she was today. I answered and she said "Ava got hurt and she's bleeding and we need you to come." I said okay and rushed out of the mall, then realized that I had no booster seat for her in my van because it was in the same van she'd ridden to school in with friends. So I called Mara, who had just left the mall, and she agreed to meet me at school and give me a seat.

She beat me there and I got a text saying "She's really banged up." I was confused, because I didn't even know what had happened at this point, so I couldn't picture what kind of banged up she was. I got a text from Heidi saying to let her know when I got there so she could be outside to watch the kids so I could get right to Ava, who was in the office with her teacher, who is also a nurse.

So I was pretty stressed out by then. I pulled up and Heidi came straight out to the car and I ran into the office. Mara and Ava's teacher were standing around her, so I couldn't see her at first, but then Mara saw I was there and walked towards me and Ava looked up, saw me,  and just started bawling.

She looked like she'd been thrown against a wall, I am not even joking. One knee had a big scrape, and the back of her wrist was marked up as well, but her face...oh my goodness. She already had a bruise forming under one eye and a scrape on her cheekbone, a big scrape on her forehead, a fat and bloody lip, and her nose...her nose was just not quite right. There was a scrape on the bridge of it that was bleeding, but it was already swelling and something was just off. Then she opened her mouth, and I saw her teeth, which were literally covered in blood. Her adult front teeth have been coming in for a few months and were at different points of growing in, and none of us could tell if they had been pushed back into her gums or just looked that way because of all the blood and how swollen her mouth and lips were. She wouldn't let me get a good feel, and just kept crying. Ir turned out she has been running laps with her class and just tripped over her feet and fell flat on her face. For some reason she didn't put her hands down to catch herself. Finally, I realized what she was saying over and over:

"I don't want to go home! I don't want to miss P.E.!"

How said is that? In the end I had to take her into the bathroom to show her her own face in the mirror so she could understand why she had to go have it looked at. When she saw her face she just started screaming. A few minutes later I had her in the van and we were getting ready to leave. As we pulled up past the playground, her entire class ran out to say goodbye to her and practically crawled into the van to tell her they loved her. It was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen. As we pulled away, a few girls were still standing by the fence waving and yelling "Goodbye Ava! We love you!"

My mom was available to take the other three kids, luckily, and Ava's doctor's office recommended I take her to a particular urgent care center to be seen. We finally found it and I helped Ava inside only to find out that the doctor wasn't even there! Unbelievable. We were there during their posted hours, it was an urgent care facility, and they had no doctor. We had no choice but to turn around and drive back the way we came to the hospital.

Which makes it the second ER visit that Ava has racked up thanks to running. She's officially never allowed to run again.

When we were finally seen they did a great job getting her cleaned up and checked out. Luckily her nose wasn't broken, just banged up enough to make it look a little abnormal. Also, she apparently somehow embedded some gravel in the inside of her nose whens she fell. They did something that fixed it, and everything else was relatively minor except for her teeth.

Both of them are a little loose and she has some pretty heavy bruising and bleeding on her gums along the gum line behind her top lip,  but by the time we were leaving the ER it was already past business hours for the dentist. She's been eating soft foods all night, but every time she opens her mouth too much, her lips start bleeding and she gets blood in her food. It was so frustrating for her. I'm hoping we can make it through the weekend and find someone who will take payments to try to make sure she doesn't lose these top teeth, since they're adult teeth. Fingers crossed for a dentist that takes payments, because our insurance does not include dental!

She's bounced back well, though, although tomorrow I'm thinking she's going to look very colorful and probably feel pretty sore. I'd post a picture from today but I don't even want to look at it again. I've never seen someone's face so banged up just from running around. I guess we've always called her "Grace" for a reason, and it's not because she's graceful!

She's hilarious, though...she's decided that when people say something about what her face looks like, she's going to answer "You should see the other guy!"

I am so lucky to have this kid, you guys. Seriously. She was so beat up and sore and hurting and still, when we got home, she was all about helping her brother find the perfect animals for his train, and at dinner, she didn't even complain when she couldn't eat what everyone else was eating, just said that she thought she'd better take a break until her mouth healed up some. She's amazing.

And I can't believe I forgot to mention the whole point of bringing up the doll I got...it served as the perfect present to distract her at the hospital!