Evil lawn chair

And here is a picture of the evil lawn chair.

And why is it evil, you ask? Because it attacked L. this morning. It is a beautiful day and everyone was playing happily outside while I was taking a phone call, when I hear the kind of crying and the yelling of, "Mommmmy!" that has the type of tone that make one run. Even me. I go out to find that somehow L. has gotten her left thumb trapped between the two narrow slats you see below. Yes, I know there isn't room for a thumb, even a little one, between those pieces of wood. And because there was no room for it, once it was there, the wood was not moving. At. All.

My children are excellent in a crisis. P. went to get B., while TM screamed for me and stayed with the frantic little girl while trying to hold the chair still as directed by P. I made it to the scene first, made an attempt to loosen her finger and yelled to B. about the importance of him coming immediately. I am so glad I have a very strong 16 year old son who was home, otherwise I am quite sure we would have been calling 911. I prayed and tried to gently pull L.'s thumb down while B. used brute strength to move the slats apart. The whole procedure probably took only a few seconds, but it felt much, much longer. When we finally freed her thumb, it was totally flat... really not the way a thumb should look.

I allowed myself a couple of moments of panic while I held and comforted her and then forced myself to be the grown-up again. We went inside and I called the pediatrician's office to see if I should bring her there or go to the ER. Thankfully, the doctor's office wanted us to bring her there, so we gave L. some pain reliever (the blood had started to flow back into her thumb and it began bleeding and I'm sure throbbing) and were off. I took P. with me so she could comfort L. on the way while I drove. It was terribly pathetic to hear G. wailing as her injured sister was being whisked away.

Long story short... L. was a trooper and she is going to be fine. We had x-rays taken which L. cooperated for beautifully (I'm sure the lollipop helped) and nothing is broken. Her thumb will be sore and turn all sorts of shades of purple and we need to keep an eye on it to be sure no infection sets in, but it will be fine. The doctor wasn't sure at this point if she will lose the nail or not, there is a small chance she will, but if she does it will grow back.

B. held down the fort while we were gone and put in a movie to distract the rather upset masses who stayed behind. L. was quite happy to join in the movie watching when we got home.

Evil lawn chair.