Did You Hear the One About Ava, the Lava and the Train?

I introduced the kids to the game "hot lava" yesterday. Isaac embraced it better than Ava, but she's still young. They spread out the lids to the toy boxes and were stepping from one to the next. This went on for a good 45 minutes. That's a LIFETIME in kid world, so I was happy. Then Isaac got the brilliant idea to stack the lids. I immediately shut that down because Ava would want to climb up and not be able to get down without falling. He pouted, waited for me to turn my back and the stacked them anyway. The second I looked back, Ava was up on the stack (maybe 6-8 inches off the ground) and she took a faulty side step and fell backwards off the stack. 

She whimpered and grabbed her head because it looked like she just bonked her head on the floor - a common occurrence in our house. I sent Isaac to his room for disobeying me which lead to Ava falling. I had her in one arm as I started putting the toy box lids away... then I noticed a couple drops of blood on the white lid. I stopped. 

I looked around at Ava and at myself. I had blood dripping down my upper arm and all over my hand. WAS I CUT? I checked. WAS AVA CUT? I checked. She had a couple scabs on her feet that I checked... nope, those were in tact. She has blood drips on her arm... no, not cut. drips on her back... no not cut. Then I saw it...

She had blood dripping from her head - the back of her head. She wasn't crying, just whimpering a little. I quickly grabbed some wet paper towels to clean up the area so I could assess the extent of the injury. Heading to the ER for stitches was the first thing that came to mind. I couldn't get through the matted hair to see how bad the cut was... so being the non-over-reactor I am (note the sarcasm), I called Penny, my incredible mother-in-law. She's had a good amount of experience with kids and injuries. 

She got there within minutes and helped distract Ava so she would hold still long enough to clean up the blood and see the wound. She just had a couple of punctures from one of Isaac's trains that was apparently on the floor, hidden by one of her stuffed animals. It looked like a tiny snake bite. WHEW! No stitches required. 

So, Penny helped me to keep her still long enough to clean up the back of her head and get some ointment on the two little spots - who knew that two little punctures could bleed SO INCREDIBLY MUCH?!?! I'm not good with blood, obviously.

Ava's fine this morning, but she's sore. I laid her on her back to change her diaper after she woke up and she pathetically whimpered, "Head hurt." Poor thing. She's such a trooper.