A Slightly Smashed Finger

Clayton made it to 5 1/2 before making a trip to the ER for a true emergency. Honestly, I'm surprised he's lasted this long. A couple weeks ago, minutes after arriving at work, Cyle called. He said I need to either come home (I was 30 minutes away) or call Caitlyn (our fabulous next-door babysitter) because Clayton had smashed his finger really badly. Now, for Cyle to say it was smashed badly, I knew it must be bad. By the time I was able to leave work, Cyle and Clayton were already back home. I didn't see his finger until we had to change the bandage a few mornings later.

This is what happened: We had this really awful retaining wall along our driveway for a short distance. The previous owner had obviously collected rocks from around the property and stuck them together with some Quikcrete. It was falling over and looked really shabby.

Just after I had left for work, Cyle had started to break up this wall to remove it. The boys were playing with the rocks. Levi was up the hill rolling the rocks down to Clayton. According to Clayton, his hand got tired and he was resting it on rock. Meanwhile, Levi rolled another rock down. It just happened to collide with the rock Clayton was using as a hand rest. Cyle heard Clayton's scream and knew immediately that he was really hurt. - And this is where the chaos begins. -

Cyle asked Clayton what happened and Clayton replied, "Levi threw a rock and smashed my finger. You need to call 911! It's an emergency!" So Cyle took Clayton inside, wrapped up his finger and told him not to move. While Cyle was inside with Clayton, Levi thought he was going to be in trouble so he took off running into the woods. Cyle ran back outside, grabbed Clarey and set her inside the house so she couldn't go anywhere. Then he ran back out again to search the woods for Levi. Finally, he had all three kids in the house and Caitlyn came over. Cyle left her with two crying children and took Clayton to the ER.

One x-ray later and Clayton calmed down. His finger was not broken. They bandaged it up really well and told Cyle that he'd lose his fingernail. It could have been so much worse.

This evening, in the bathtub, Clayton's fingernail fell off. He was so excited to put it in his collection. His finger is healing really nicely.