Fearless.

My sister's text message to me last night said it best. Brooke is positively fearless, and that's exactly why we ended up in the Lewistown Hospital Emergency Room for a few hours yesterday afternoon.

Honestly, I don't want to relive the story or even admit that it happened, but for the sake of remembering and hoping that we'll be able to laugh about this when we look back on it in 20 years, it went a little like this.

We were super excited for Monster Caleb's first birthday party yesterday! Brooke was 'dressed to kill,' because clearly, she had to look beautiful for her boyfriend - after all, the party guests will be her in-laws someday!
Zig and I were getting everything together to leave for the party - diaper bag, purse, Caleb's present - and honestly, we were rushing around a bit.
Zig was busy on the phone, so I loaded my arms as full as they could go with everything we needed, including Brooke.
We made our way to the garage. I sat her in the back seat of the car. I leaned away to put down the bags so I could strap her in the carseat. And she dove out of the car after me. Onto the concrete garage floor. On her head.

I don't need to go into detail about the 10 minutes that followed. Absolute hysterics, trying to get ice onto her head, trying to make our first emergency decision about whether or not to take her to the ER.
Within 10 minutes, the screaming had stopped, Brooke had sucked down a bottle and was ready for a nap. She was acting like herself, but she had the ugliest, biggest, and purplest goose egg on her forehead that I've ever seen. And since it was her head that she landed on, we decided not to take any chances. We called the pediatrician on-call and she directed us to head into the ER and have her checked out. And so we did.

Things went pretty smoothly for our hospital. We were immediately taken into triage, where they checked all of her vitals and asked a lot of questions - did she pass out? vomit? - Nope. Nope.
We were then taken back to an exam room to wait for the doctor to see her. While we waited, Brooke was walking around the ER, making friends, talking to passers-by, but was getting sleepy as it had been time to nap when this all happened.
When the doctor came to take a look at her, he suggested that, given the size of the goose egg, she should have a catscan to be sure that there were no problems with her scull or her brain.

The thought of something being wrong with her brain was enough to make me sick. And watching my 10 month old daughter being completely restrained in the catscan machine as she screamed for me, was enough to have me looking for a garbage can - I thought I was going to throw up. I'm trying so hard to forget the image of Brooke laying in the catscan machine, unable to move, and terrified. Zig couldn't even stay in the room with us, so I had to bear it all myself.

Luckily, the catscan came back fine and the doctor sent us home. We were smart to have taken her the ER. Head injuries are nothing to take lightly. She isn't old enough to tell us if she's feeling light-headed, or extra sleepy, or has blurry vision.

As the afternoon passed, the swelling in her head and eye went down and this morning when she woke up, all that was left was a purple circle - a little bigger than a golf ball - there to remind us of yesterday's events.

Needless to say, yesterday was probably the worst day of our lives.
Brooke is fine. Thank God. But, my mind can't help but relive the whole thing, wondering how different our day could have been if only... If only... But I guess that will only make me crazy.

Like Meg said, accidents happen, and Brooke is a fearless little girl. Although that can't change the bruises on her head, or the fact that she'll probably have the worst 'shiner' I've ever seen, we can chalk this up as a huge experience that we'll never forget - and that hopefully, will turn into something we can laugh about in years to come.

After all, doesn't every parent have one of those stories that goes a little something like...
"When you were a baby, your Mother dropped you from the ... and you landed on your head... and that's why you are the way you are..." Hardy har har.

Sometimes being fearless is a good thing. But yesterday, it was a little more than I could handle.
Lesson learned.