elmo visits the firehouse. and sweet pea has the firehouse come to her.

we have a bedtime routine, for the most part. we brush teeth, change diapers, put on jammies, then me and daddy and peanut crawl into sweet pea's bed and we all read a story together. then, it's time for night-night. last night, we did the drill and came back downstairs and 5 minutes later we heard "CRACK!" on the bedrails then sweet pea screaming waling crying. i ran up there in about 3 steps-i seriously think i missed about 85% of them on my way up. i ran into her room, flipped on the light and saw blood gushing.
for the record, i have been known to pass out cold at the thought of maybe breaking my arm-turned out to just be a big bump and a bruise-but that's beside the point.
i grabbed her up out of her bed and ran her into the bathroom, called* for paul [*read "screamed my head off"] and grabbed a towel to catch the blood. at that point i couldn't tell if she'd broken teeth out, if she'd bitten through her lip, if it was a bloody nose...all i knew was the blackest/reddest blood i've ever seen in my life was pouring out of my tiny 2-year old's face. paul came up in about as much time as it took me to get up there and as soon as he was holding her i ran for the phone and called 9-1-1. at that point i was pretty sure she was going to need a blood transfusion before the ambulance could get to the house. i was shaking in my boots to say the least. the operator was frantically going through her pages "ok...put all family pets away and turn on your porch light." "ok.....um....let me see....um.....if she seems groggy or sleepy turn her to the side but do NOT let her fall asleep." !!!! OK !!!! "ok.....uh...let me see here.....hold the soft part of her nose...not the bridge of her nose but just below the bone and lay her all the way back." by then i handed the phone to paul and went downstairs to watch for the ambulance because i could hear it coming. i flagged them into our place and told them the rundown, she's 2, she's our foster baby, we've had her since last summer, she's gonna be scared of you at first...and he said "how old is she?!" "she just turned 2." ya-my thoughts exactly mr. fireman!"
all in all she did great. the bleeding stopped shortly after they got here. there was one paramedic that was asking me how it happened and i showed him the blood on her bedrail and the laundry hamper. from what we can tell by the amount of laundry she had hauled into her bed, she had been leaning over her bedrail into the laundry hamper and pulling clothes into her bed. she tends to do this often. and i've caught her doing it and she's on her knees...not standing up. but what they weren't sure of is how FAR did she fall onto the bedrail because apparently her face caught her fall. (ugh-i can't think/talk about it too much or i start to get woozy.) we didn't end up having to take her to the E.R. but i'm waiting for all my nieghbor ladies to ask me what happened. i saw 3 of them peering through different curtains through out the neighborhood. today it's discolored-a little yellowish, but i think we're gonna get off with out black eyes. the paramedic said give it a couple days...she still might get them. eesh! this girl is gonna keep us on our TOES!!!