Bloody lips and graham crackers

Last night I had to make a run to Quantico to drop off a new prescription at the pharmacy.

My cell phone only gets reception on the edge of the base over by the commissary and MCX. Once I "head into the woods" as the girls like to say, I have no reception.

As soon as I got back in reception area after leaving the pharmacy my cell phone alerted me to 3 waiting messages. THREE!! I was in the pharmacy less than 15 minutes and out of range for maybe 20 minutes.

My heart started racing.

First message from husband "You need to call me ASAP!"

Second message "Call me as soon as you get this. McKinley busted her lip open and I am pretty sure she needs stitches."

Third message "Tracey stopped by and he agrees that McKinley needs stitches. Reagan is across the street and I am taking McKinley to the Urgent Care Clinic."

I raced back to Stafford to meet them at Urgent Care.

The problem is there are two Urgent Care Clinics in Stafford and only one accepts Tricare Prime. Fortunately husband got this information ahead of time, so he went to the right one. I sat in the parking lot of the other wondering where they were.

I finally called and husband said the Urgent Care Clinic couldn't do stitches, so he was taking her to Mary Washington Hospital ER in Fredericksburg.

Could someone please define Urgent Care for me? Bandaids and Motrin, I guess.

So, I told him I would meet him down there since I had her Tricare card. Then we realized we were less than a mile apart, so he stopped at 7-11 and waited for me to catch up and give him the card. Truth be told, I really wanted to see how bad my baby's lip looked.

She is one of the toughest kids on the planet. She was laughing and smiling when I pulled up even thought her shirt was covered with blood and her lip was pretty puffy. She happily showed me the lollipop the doctor at Urgent Care gave her and told me it was watermelon and it was de-li-cious!

I picked Reagan up from the neighbors and we came home and waited for husband and McKinley to return.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, close to 1:00 am, they got home.

Husband reported that she screamed bloody murder when they numbed her lip, but that she was fine now.

She was very groggy, but proudly showed me her two stitches.

I took her upstairs to get her ready for bed.

She had been clutching two packages of graham crackers since she got out of the truck.

When I started to take her shirt off, she remembered she had them and said "Oh, wait mommy!"

She walked over to her sister who was sound asleep and put one package beside her on the bed and said "Here sister, I got some crackers for you."

Then she turned and handed the other package to me. "They gave me crackers at the doctor and I got some for you and Reagan, too."

Makes a mommy proud!!