Party Girl

As the saying goes, "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt!" For Sophia it has been all fun and games, jumping off the walls and swinging from the chandeliers, or so it seems. But last week Sophia introduced us to the Emergency Room at Emerson Hospital. Late at night, after each child had been tucked in bed at least once, we heard a shriek. I dropped the phone and raced upstairs just as Steve leapt out of bed. Sophia and Annelise had snuck out from underneath their covers for one more bronco ride in their fantasy rodeo. Sophia hit her head on the corner of the wall and blood was gushing to prove it. We lifted her up onto our bathroom counter to examine her wound. Sure enough, this girl needed stitches, the first in the family. She clutched Kit, her American Girl doll and shuffled out the door in her sleeper jammies and Hello Kitty slippers, with a rag pressed to the side of her head. "I'll be just as brave as I can be," she announced to her tearful brothers and sisters, who had one by one climbed out of their beds to wish her well. Steve whisked her into the dark of the night. Without a single tear or whimper as the doctors stapled her head back together, Sophia returned home with four pieces of hardware in her scalp and a bag full of toys.

This party girl, who is as good as new, is already bouncing from the walls and eyeing those chandeliers!