We had her in stitches...

Let me first just say that my husband is a great daddy. He really is. He loves our daughter fiercely and is incredibly precious with her. She adores him and is a complete Daddy's girl. She'll go around the house singing, "Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada...." and it melts my heart.



But Daddy has been feeling a little down on his parenting skills lately because it was on his watch that Ella had her first accident.

He had lovingly given me a couple hours of "Coley time" which I planned to spend at Target and Barnes & Noble...picking up a few household items and giving myself a little book and coffee time. I made it to Target and had just started down my list when I got the call...



"Hey babe." (Caller ID allows me to do this with relatively little chance of getting it wrong)



(Baby crying hysterically in the background) "Um, hey....um...I think you need to come home. Ella busted her chin open and is crying and bleeding and I think she's gonna need stitches."



So much for my time away. Unfortunately, we are a one car family at this point in our lives. Well, we actually have an old beat up truck that I like to call by many different not-so-nice names, but it's obviously unsuitable for a child to ride in (or me for that matter...I try my best not to go near it most days). And, while it may have not been the best move, I had opted for the more comfortable Honda to tote me to my day of "me". It had the carseat in it and everything that he needed to take her to the ER. So I dropped my basket of items in Target, jumped in the car and...



sat in post-Christmas traffic.



When I finally got to the wide open spaces of the highway towards home I put my hazards on. And, while I was not going outrageously over the speed limit, a cop stopped me. I leaned out the window and explained the situation and wouldn't you know...He let me go! I couldn't believe it!


(Disclaimer: you can't use this excuse if you're really speeding...that's lying).



20 minutes after I got the phone call, I walked into the house and saw my husband and my daughter sitting on the steps drawing on the Magna-Doodle a picture of a little girl with an owie on her chin. They both had blood all over their shirts but were surprisingly calm. We loaded her in the car and took her to the ER.

And 4 hours later we finally put her back in the car with 3 new stitches on her chinny chin chin.