Lala’s first trip to the ER

I guess it had to happen eventually. We were at Target last night doing some shopping and Lala kept trying to stand up in the shopping cart, so I usually try to dissuade her from doing it by stopping the cart altogether or letting her walk beside me, but somehow this time she ended up sitting on top of a box of diapers that were in the space where she was supposed to be sitting. My instincts said to tell my wife to not let her sit there but my wife had her arms on each side of her so I let it go. I go over to another department and get some cables for my car and come back and now my wife is looking at something and my sister in law is pushing the cart, and Lala has a bag of caramel corn and a mess on her face so i take the bag from her and walk to the front of the cart to keep it far from Lala. At that very instant my wife calls over to her sister, her sister looks back and then Lala either tries to reach for the bag of caramel corn or she just leans out too wide and she tumbles off the the shopping cart head first onto the hard tile floor. I watched it all happen in slow motion and I cant even describe the sickening feeling, rush of adrenaline and emotion, and terrible thoughts of losing my child to a broken neck that went through my body as I scooped her up and walked towards her mom. I think Lala was shocked at first but then she let out a cry and wailed for a solid 5 minutes. we checked her out and she seemed ok so Lala went with them to get a slushie while I went and checked out. I couldnt help but wonder if she was ok and when i checked out i went over to the snack bar and she seemed ok.. still red and teary but normal.So we get her to the car and start driving and suddenly she seems out of it and trying to go to sleep so we start keeping her alert by playing with her and giving her candy, while my wife calls the advice nurse. We know that head injuries can be lethal and you shouldnt let them go to sleep afterwards. I’m pretty worried so i start heading over to the hospital and the advice nurse tells us to bring her in to the ER. I haul ass there and we get her checked in and about 2 hours later they finally check her and basically tell us she is okay and to monitor her tonight when she sleeps. I say my prayers of thanks for letting this be minimal. We figured she was ok, but we needed to be sure. At least while we were there Lala made a bunch of sad sick people happy by waving to them and being nice. Maybe thats why we were supposed to go there, to let her make someone smile that needed it. We finally get home around midnight and Lala went to bed pretty quietly. We woke her up at 3 to make sure she could wake up normally and she had no problem. Seeing something like this happen to your child sucks. I can imagine how much more horrifying it is to seem them suffer major wounds or disease. It tears you up inside. Thank you god for letting Lala be okay. I’ll try and take better care next time.