Mush...

That's how the skin on Bro1's knees, the left one in particular, was described by the practice nurse this morning. Nice.

Not two minutes after I got back home after dropping them off at school, the phone rang, the school secretary telling me that Bro1 had fallen and made a mess of his knees, more than a plaster was required.

Of course, this was the morning I had made an appointment to get my hair cut, now I know that sounds more than a bit uncaring but jeez no scissors have been near the unruly mop since the long lost days of summer! So off I went to collect him, had a look under the dressings and since the blood wasn't actually pouring out I took him off to the hairdressers where he regaled them with tales of how gruesome his knees looked and made himself useful entertaining Bro4.

Hair once more restored to a respectable state we headed back home. I've got numerous first aid kits and indeed a certificate in baby & child emergency first aid so I reckoned we could sort those knees out ourselves. School trousers binned and a clean of the dried blood from the left one revealed huge gaping holes surrounded by 'mushy' bits of skin. Not enough bits to steri strip together so off we went to the practice nurse. Our Doctor's surgery is fantastic, no faffing about begging to get your kids seen here, oh no, they are brilliant and no sooner were we through the door with a brief tale of what had happened than he was on a treatment bed and being tended to.

'Mush', said the nurse.
'Yup', said Bro1.
'Right, you're going to need to be brave and probably shouldn't look'.
He didn't look.
Or scream.
The nurse swabbed, irrigated, swabbed some more, had a good old poke around with tweezers and then dressed the wounds.

We left with a supply of wound dressings and bandages with strict instructions to return if it even so much looks as being infected or fails to begin to heal.

Then I took him back to school :-)