There is Nothing Urgent About the E.R.

So we had our first visit to the emergency room with Elio last night. I got home from work to find Elio happily hanging out in the living room with literally every toy that he owns—every block, every car, every lego, every maraca, every stuffed animal, every random piece of plastic crap—spread out all over the floor (placed in a museum or art gallery, it would have made a great installation), while Guy calmly searched the Internet to find out the side effects of swallowing Baby Oragel Nighttime Formula (essentially, death). Have we mentioned that Elio has gotten really good at twisting caps off?

After a quick call to Poison Control, we were on our way to the ER. Which is never the way you envision spending your Wednesday night. And for good reason. It’s simply the worst place on earth. Depressing, scary, too bright, all that waiting, waiting, waiting next to people with mysterious coughs and bloody paper towels and defeated postures that tell you that they’ve already been waiting for a really long time, and so will you, sucka. Elio, of course, loved it. Because there were buttons to push and drawers to open and stools to spin and tongue depressors everywhere. Plus lots of other “big” kids that he fell in with who held his hand and carried him around and played with his hair and let him hug them. Of course, all the other kids were there because they had hacking coughs and snot running out of their eyeballs (though one teenager was there because he’d gotten into a fight at school and got punched in the face with a pair of brass knuckles; it was a good opportunity for us to tell Elio that he is never, ever allowed to get into a fight with anyone wearing brass knuckles. Ever.).

Before we even left for the hospital (by the way, where there was only doctor on duty—don’t even get me started on my Michael Moore rant about this whole situation and people having to use the ER as their primary doctor because they don’t have insurance, etc.), my Mom Radar was already telling me that Elio was fine and was not, in fact, poisoned. But I think we also felt that if we didn’t get him checked out, we would feel like Very Bad Parents. And of course, once you enter that crazy ER system, you don’t really feel like you can get out of it. We thought several times during our hours of waiting of just up and leaving, but we couldn’t leave without seeing the doctor, and I was convinced that if we did leave without formally checking out we would suddenly receive a bill for about $500,000. So we stayed. And played Ring Around the Rosie with two sisters dressed head to toe in pink. And read Richard Scarry. And ate mashed sweet potatoes with tongue depressors, just for the novelty of it. And walked back and forth and forth and back. For 5 hours. After which, the doctor told us what we already knew, that Elio was fine, to keep an eye him, to make sure all the yucky stuff is locked away, etc.

We were home by midnight. Elio fell asleep in the car on the way home, and never stirred when I unbuckled him from his car seat, carried him through the rain into our building, up two flights of stairs and laid him in his crib. He didn’t move a muscle or make a peep until 7:30 this morning, when I found him standing up in his crib, smiling and babbling, ready to start all over again.