Boy the trip up was a mess. Left work at 2pm to try to "beat the traffic". Got caught in the Friday-before-the-big-weekend-let's-try-to-beat-the-traffic traffic. By the time we made it out of the LA Basin, we decided to stop in Santa Barbara for dinner.

Ruby's was fine, but afterwards as we were walking in the plaza, my son decides to jump from a step on a fountain, about a foot and a half to the pavement. Jumps, lands, and his upper body momentum carries his cranium into the pavement.

A very audiable "donk" reaches my ears.

Two second pause, then turns and starts crying on my lap. We're thinking, that must have hurt real good when I look at my hand and see blood. Not just a smear of blood, not just the blood you get by wiping a scraped knee, but the full on blood-that-covers-your-whole-hand-like-on-ER kind. His whole forehead and nose is covered in his blood.

Wiping the blood off his forehead with about four or five baby wipes to clean up the wound. Lacking anything better, I stick my thumb on the spot where the blood is weeping out. Mall security gets there and heads off to get band aids and gauze, which we can't use because by the time they get the first aid there, the bleeding has stopped. Good thing there was three guards there, because there was a sizable crowd of onlookers who are apparently alternating thoughts between, "What terrible parents those two are" and "why doesn't that guy use something sterile besides his dang thumb?"

Then, some random guy in a baseball cap with a golf course logo takes one look at the golf ball sized bump developing on Tyus' forehead and tells us that we'd better call the paramedics because his "buddy got hit in the head by a golf ball and seemed fine for a day then fell over with serious head injuries". Great, my wife looks pale. So our golfing benefactor takes it on himself to call 911 on his cell phone and tell emergency dispatch. . .after a couple minute wait because he seems to be on hold. Now, dispatch asks benefactor where the accident occured and he says, "between Macy's and Nordstrum's at a fountain. . .street. . .(turns to security). . .what address is this mall?" Security then gets on the cell phone and chats with dispatch.

Well, that straightened out the paramedics, one whose name is "Rock", get there and take a look at Tyus. After the examination, Tyus is not crying anymore, but very shocked at the whole incident. The paramedics recommend that Tyus get looked at by a doctor, which seems be be a good idea. The paramedics say that they can take him to the hospital, which would mean that they would have to put him on a backboard and tape him down to immobilize him, which seems to be a bad idea. I'm imagining a screaming, crying kid, bleeding from the head, taped to a backboard and waiting in the ER for two hours.

As if Tyus doesn't have enough trauma already being my son. This could have pushed him over into a full blown I-never-loved-you-dad-because-of-that-fountain-incident-which-scarred-me-for-life complex.

Long story short, we take him to Santa Barbara Little Cottage Hospital and after about 20-30 minute wait, he gets to see the docs who, after five minutes, basically says that he has a nasty bump on the head. Tells us to just keep the wound clean and apply antibiotics. I ask the nurse if using baby wipes is ok: "Oh, no, you'd better use soap and water." Great, like I don't have enough guilt. "Oh and don't worry if he vomits once or twice tonight, usually happens with head injuries, just be careful if he repeatedly vomits."

Well, mom and dad are much relieved and we travel on from there, getting into town at 4am. Ugh.

One thing I learned, it's one thing to see another person's kid bleeding on the sidewalk, but an entirely another thing when it's YOUR kid. I was really worried that Tyus was going to go into shock, having suffered massive internal injuries from the 18" fall. Well, we're just glad that Tyus saw the doctor and I'm glad that it wasn't serious.