Blood for Frittata

I was in the kitchen late this afternoon absorbed in the consuming task of cleaning out my already-used skillet sufficiently so that the frittata I was making would come out of the skillet cleanly at the end for a show-stopping dinner. Or at least not a fallen-apart mess. It was a very important thing I was doing, obviously.

So important that I left Charlie to his own devices in the dining room while I attended to my skillet. When I checked on him, he was busy with the laundry basket on the floor. It was a plastic laundry basket filled with clean sheets. I figured pulling the sheets out would occupy him for at least a few minutes. Long enough for me to get my pan in frittata-ready shape.

As I was wiping the pan out and putting it back on the stove to fill with the egg mixture, I heard a loud thunk from the dining room, followed by a baby wail of the "OWWWWW" variety.

I ran in to find the laundry basket on its side and Charlie screaming next to it. When I picked him up, I saw the blood in his mouth.

It was ALL OVER his mouth. I couldn't even figure out how he had hurt himself. I brought him outside into the sunlight so I could investigate more closely while he cried all over my shoulder and dripped blood and spit on my shirt. I figured he had probably just bitten his lip somewhere, but I wanted to be sure he hadn't bitten right through it or bitten the end of his tongue off or something equally horrifying.

After a couple of minutes of dabbing with a paper towel, I ascertained that there was no really awful damage. Which left me with a still-crying child. How was I supposed to explain to a year-old baby that it's no big deal? You'll just have a swollen lip! Nothing to cry about!

Except he's a baby, and crying is sort of their thing. So I went inside and grabbed a big ice cube from my gin and tonic for him to suck on.

That's right. I was drinking a gin and tonic when my son injured himself. This just gets better and better. At least I rinsed the ice cube off before giving it to him, so he wasn't drinking gin too. Though that might have helped with the numbing effect.

In the end, the only visible signs of his accident were a slightly swollen upper lip and one perfect frittata. Seriously. Lovely brown crust, came out of the pan completely intact, tasted great. Charlie loved it.

Totally worth my baby's blood, right? Right.

I'll do better tomorrow.

P.S. I'm sure you can guess that despite my flippant tone, NO parent EVER wants to see blood dripping from any part of his or her child's body. It's terrifying even if you know it's minor. Thank the god of frittatas that this was minor.