Blood everywhere

A few weeks ago, we got our first big scare with Mr. Meh. It was a Saturday morning, my early morning to take care of Mr. Meh, while Andy and MP were sleeping. After snuggling in bed, I took him downstairs and put him in his playpen, while I went into the kitchen and the bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. We leave him in his playpan where he usually either plays with his toys or stands up looking around, waiting for us to return to pick him up.

So a few minutes later I went into the living room to get him. He had his hands in his mouth (as he usually does) but his whole face was covered with blood. There was blood coming out of his mouth, it was all over his hands, all over the playpen mesh, all over his toys.

I freaked out. I couldn't figure out where the blood was coming from or what did he do to himself. I thought he bit his finger, his lip, pulled out a tooth or something. Of course, a few months ago, I had read a New Yorker article about some rare disease where people actually can't help themselves but end up gnawing on their fingers, lips, etc.....Naturally, that freakish scenario ran through my head for a split second.

It turns out, he had reopened a small nick where a part of his skin was nicked when we were cutting his finger nails a few days earlier. But it was like one of those stupid razor nicks -- there is nothing to it, but it's a shallow and wide nick that just won't stop bleeding.

We washed off his hands and face. Andy kept holding his fingers to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding, which of course wasn't working as Ivan was trying to wiggle his way out. He never likes to sit still and have someone hold his hands still (needless to say, fingernail cutting is a major event, which my dad has undertaken. I've been to scared to do so, after I almost took off a bit of his finger very early on. Instead I've been trying to file down his nails, but even that doesn't work because he doesn't want to be still. He wants to grab the file and put it in his
mouth).

We went through several bandaids before the bleeding stopped and some wrestling between him and Andy so that Andy get hold his finger and apply pressure to it.

In the end it wasn't a big deal or drama. No emergency room trips yet, but it was so freaky to see so much blood coming out of him.

Of course, Ivan continued putting his hands in his mouth, so we ended up freaking out that he was going to take off the band aid and eat it. And it almost happened. Luckily I was watching him so when I saw the band aid come off, I quickly grabbed it. Now, choking on a band aid would've been something else....