A day in the life of two brothers...: How I became a pirate, by Thomas

One of Thomas' favorite books is "How I Became a Pirate." Well, today, Thomas became a pirate. After telling the story to a friend of mine, she laughed and said, "Oh, it was a crime of passion!" And yes, it's true...the story of how Thomas became a pirate centers around a "crime of passion" -- well, of the three-year old variety. And in the end, Thomas became our rather pitiful (at least at first) pirate:

At first, he didn't want to open his good eye much, but by the end of the day he was playing around in the Chick-Fil-A play area with the other kids as if he didn't have a problem in the world. And yes, we went to Chick-Fil-A because he is milking this for everything it is worth. :)

But first, let me back up and explain what happened. Today was the day of his first field trip at school. His school friends gathered at Charles Towne Landing for an Easter egg hunt and a stroll through the animal forest. The Easter egg hunt went fine (I left my camera at a friends' house and only had my phone camera, but I'll share those later) and then we finally made our way to the animal forest to see the bison, turkeys, puma (he was hiding), black bears and birds. In the middle of our leisurely stroll, after checking out the bears, Thomas was giving and receiving hugs and love from one of his best girl friends in his class, Ava. I saw them playing with each other and turned around to tend to another child. Next thing I heard was this awful scream and he came running to me.

I wasn't sure what had happened and Thomas wasn't telling anything. He was just screaming and crying and refusing to let me see his eye. I soon gathered that Ava had accidentally poked him or scratched him in the eye in the middle of all their hugging. She was so upset that she had hurt her dear friend. And Thomas was just beside himself. It took me FOREVER (and many gnat bites to Parker) to get him calmed down. Finally he was calm, but he kept asking to stay in the shade and I eventually held Parker or let him walk and pushed Thomas in the stroller. He kept randomly screaming out in pain, and he was definitely not himself. I could see a little red spot next to the iris of his eye and a lot of general redness in his watery eye.

Anyway, he continued to act okay and then randomly scream out in utter pain so we decided I should take him to the doctor (of course we had to wait for the doctor's long lunch hourS to be over first). When he tried to eat lunch he ended up spitting out his food at one point and screamed about the pain. I told him to keep his eye closed (and he agreed that that felt better) and he did...for the next 1.5 hours until we saw the doctor. And then we had to BEG him to open his eye for the numbing drops.

So anyway, to see what's going on, the doctor puts these fluorescent numbing drops in the eye and then looks at them under a special light in a darkened room. If there is a scratch, it appears like this (this is a "minor corneal abrasion"--from the internet, not Thomas' eye):

Thomas' scratch appeared as a sideways V and the line was several times thicker than the line above. I drew a drawing of it for Trey and honestly, it looked worse than what I drew.

I know, I'm a dork for trying to draw it...and I'm a dork for scanning it in...and I'm a dork for drawing so poorly. :)

But honestly, I was shocked by how much of his eye was covered by the scratch. The doctor said, "There's the corneal abrasion and it is actually a pretty signficant one." Even so, the doctor said that these things generally heal pretty quickly (within 24-48 hours) and said he'd be much better by tomorrow. Still, she looked at me like I was a bit insane when I suggested that Thomas was going to ride in the stroller as I walked the Cooper River Bridge Run tomorrow...so I guess I am not. :)

He is wearing a patch until at least tomorrow morning just to keep his eye closed. Tomorrow we'll see how he feels and decide whether or not to keep on with the patch or just let him wear sunglasses most of the time.

The picture of Thomas above was from shortly after we got home, and not long after that he perked up a little and wanted to look at the books as his Daddy read them.