When I was in 1st or 2nd grade, I jumped/fell out of the apple tree in front of Mark Whitman’s house. I can still remember his mother Kathy, running out of the house with a dishtowel. That may be where I developed my dislike of the sight of blood. I have fainted at the sight of blood several times in my life, and I’m not sure how I made it through the postpartum time period without passing out.
We went to the last Concert on the Common tonight, and the kids were all running around like they were just released from a month in solitary confinement. It was getting pretty dark and all of a sudden Aliya was on her knees in front of me, crying hysterically. Victoria relayed the sequence of events – a boy pushed Aliya out of the poor lone tree that all the kids hang on – and she was bleeding from her mouth. Luckily Mrs. Fonseca took charge and brought Aliya to the ice cream truck so she could have some light to see the damage. The ice cream man gave us paper towels and water, which was really nice. Then I took Aliya to try to calm her down and Mrs. Fonseca went to the tree to kick some butt. The boys all denied it but I’m sure they got the message. When we were leaving, the police officer directing traffic asked if the kid was still there so he could go give him a talking-to, but Aliya just wanted to get out of there. I thought it was nice that he offered though.
None of her teeth are wiggly but she’s still bleeding a bit, 2 hours later. I gave her a fresh paper towel to bite on and told her not to take it out for 15 minutes. When I came back to check, I wanted her to keep the pressure on it but I couldn’t see anything, so I asked her to pull up her upper lip. Big mistake – a pretty good gush came out and she could see it from the look on my face. I talked to the pediatrician on call and she assured me that it’s fine, mouths bleed a lot, and they hardly ever do sutures in mouths. As Mrs. Fonseca says, “That’s why God gave us lips, to protect our teeth.” Thanks Mrs. Fonseca.
These photos were taken before the tree incident:
