My Vampire Baby

I went back to work last week. I wasn’t excited about it, mostly because I greatly enjoyed the routine I was in while staying home. We found an excellent daycare provider for Robbie and we know that McKenna will adjust in due time.

The first week went by without a hitch. Kids were great, I was right back into the routine and before I knew it, it was Friday. When I arrived at daycare to kick off the weekend with my kids, Robbie was in Miss Gretchen’s arms, smiling at me as he normally does when he sees me or Rob. He looked happy, though a little tired. She told me that he had a great day for the most part, but there was “an incident”. She proceeded to tell me that a two and a half year old accidentally backed up and tripped over him, landing on him. She said Robbie got really mad, had a little blood from his lip, but stopped crying rather quickly. “He’ll be tougher for it. I’ve backed up and tripped over McKenna. It happens and he seems fine.” She proceeded to tell me yet again what an easy going boy he is. I agreed. We said our goodbyes and I put Robbie in the car. He chatted with me for a few minutes before he started to show signs of sleepiness. Before I knew it, he was fast asleep.

After 45 minutes, I got to McKenna’s school. It was quite dark outside because it was already 5:05. I got a spot right in front of the door to the room where McKenna has aftercare and McKenna came out, jumped in the car and we went home. She and I were talking as I picked up Robbie with him asleep on my shoulder and we went inside. I quickly placed him down while I ran into the bathroom. Once I finished my business, I went to go pick up Robbie. I looked down and there was blood everywhere! On his hands, his face, dribbling down his chin, all over his shirt, some on his jacket. He was a mess!

My shocked reaction was met with a smile, a bloody, twisted smile. “What happened to you?” was all I could muster up. Is something wrong with me? I thought. Why I am not in total panic like I was with McKenna? Am I so enamored with his big eyes and beautiful red hair that I’ve become complacent? I cleaned him up and tried to find where the blood was coming from. Definitely his mouth. Lower…no…upper…no…lower…no…upper. He doesn’t even have any teeth! What the heck happened? After about 20 minutes of blood pouring out, a good amount of which he swallowed, I called the Ms. Gretchen.

Me: Hi…it’s Shelley Moore, Robbie’s mom.

Gretchen: Oh, hi! How are you?

Me: (nervous laugh) Well, I can’t get Robbie to stop bleeding and I…

Gretchen: WHAT?! (no doubt picturing a lawsuit).

Me: Well, I’m just trying to find out, where exactly did this kid fall on him?

Gretchen: (stumbling) He just backed up…and landed on his face. I mean, he bled a little, but it was done in about five minutes!

Me: Well, I have him sucking on a wet washcloth. I think it’s coming from the upper part of his mouth but I can’t tell.

Gretchen: I couldn’t see anything either, but he stopped bleeding pretty quickly, so I didn’t investigate more.

Me: Okay…listen, he seems fine so don’t worry. I just wanted to see if maybe the kid landed on his stomach and he was spitting up blood.

Gretchen: No, it was definitely his face…oh my gosh…did you call his doctor? You should probably call.


We quickly said our goodbyes and I look down a Robbie swallowing some more blood. He LOVES blood! Oh my God…he’s Hannibal Lechter! I’ve given birth to a cannibal!!! I then quickly called the doctor’s office. After talking with the late night staff, we determined it was best to go to the hospital. I quickly clipped his nails (bad mommy) and off we went. Sort of…
McKenna: What about my dinner?

Me: If you were covered in blood and Robbie didn’t want to go with me to get you fixed up because he wanted dinner, how would you feel?

McKenna: (pause) But…what about my dinner?

Me: Here…


McKenna munched on tortilla chips all the way to hospital. Of course, by the time we got found a parking spot and physically got to the E.R., Robbie was once again covered in blood.

The security guard yelled for help, fellow E.R. patients offered up seats, and I just said, “Really, I think it’s worse than it looks.” Once everyone saw him smiling, with blood coming out, people relaxed. This includes the guy in triage who signed us in while speaking in a perfect Donald Duck voice. He got wide eyes from McKenna and blood gurgling giggles from Robbie. The doctors (yes, we had two of them!) saw us fairly quickly and informed us that Robbie had ripped open his frenulum, the little thing that hangs down from the upper gums in the mouth. The kid who fell on him probably started it, but because I hadn’t clipped his nails, he continued the damage every time he put his hands in his mouth. Bad mommy, indeed…

We were in and out of the hospital in less than two hours. I called back Ms. Gretchen, who had called for an update (and a little comfort which I provided), and McKenna and I finally had dinner at 9:00. Our usual Friday night movie was watching Barack Obama’s victory speech (her choice...she loves the line when he says his girls get a puppy). Thanks to the nail clippers, some antibiotics and time, he is fully recovered. As for me, well…I will enjoy a nice glass of chianti while waiting to have a friend for dinner.

From the Mouths of Babes

While I continue to work on two other entries, I wanted to share this quick exchange McKenna and I just had.

Rob walks into the room, sees us laughing and walks out.

Me: I think he'd rather look at the Internet.

McKenna: We are SO much more interesting than the Internet. Trust me!

Our Future is Right In Front of Us

My daughter, McKenna, is six and a half going on 18. Her fascination with politics began about a year ago when she overheard my mom and I discussing why we preferred different candidates, my mother with Hillary and me with Barack. McKenna asked a lot of questions and learned that no matter what, it was cool because it was a woman running against an African-American (politics in the simplest yet most complex of terms).

Then about 6 months ago we took her to Borders and told her she could choose any two books. She picked out "Fancy Nancy Goes to the Museum" and "Barack Obama: An American Tale". To my surprise, she wanted us to read the Obama book to her first. So we did.

As the election grew near, she questioned Grammie on why she was now an Obama "fan" and not a Hillary fan anymore. Grammie did a nice job explaining it. I soon explained to McKenna that I wouldn't be home on certain nights so I could go do some work for Obama's campaign. We talked about problems we face as a country and how I felt about his approaches to improving them.

Before we knew it, Election Day was here. The whole family got up at 5:45am and got to the polls by 6:15. We excitingly waited for 45 minutes to cast our vote. I was thrilled when they allowed McKenna to come into the booth with me so she could watch me cast my vote for the first African-American president. She clapped when it was done.

She took a long nap later that afternoon and begged us to let her stay up to watch the returns. We were so happy with her interest that we agreed. So there we all were, watching three hours of television and talking about things while McKenna helped my husband organize papers he was grading (he's a teacher, too). She kept chiming in with comments like, "Uh-oh! It looks like John McCain is going to win West Virginia...yup...he won it," and "Yes! Obama wins Pennsylvania! That's HUGE! Right, mom?"

By 10:50, we told McKenna she had to go to bed and she did so, as did I, both of us quite reluctantly. No more than 15 minutes later, Rob woke us up to tell us the news. She started clapping and leapt out of bed to run downstairs and watch the people celebrating.

This morning, she was still buzzing with excitement, but it was almost as if she became a pundit herself. "Now, let's just hope he can fix the economy and put the troops in the right country." Wow...she really listened.
Of course, the little princess had one final word, "And you know what, mom? He is soooooooo handsome!"