One evening

Last Thursday evening went like this:

4.45pm: leave work as usual to pick E up from preschool. MUST get the 4.59 train or it's impossible to make it there by 5.30, which is when they lock the doors and deliver your child to the local police station.

4.55pm: Shaun happens to be heading home early, we meet outside the station, go down the escalators, jump on the waiting train. Too good to be true!

5.10pm: Train goes shooting through our stop ... it WAS too good to be true. We were so busy talking we didn't check the boarding before getting on the train. We are on the one BEFORE ours ... the Wollongong train. First stop about 20km from where our car is parked.

5.15pm: Apologetic, grovelling phone call to preschool promising we'll be there ASAP.

5.30pm: Get off train, wait for train back the direction we'd just come from

5.45pm: Phone rings. It's the preschool. I think they're going to ask where we are. Instead I am greeted with "E's had an accident."

5.50pm: Run (as much as seven-month pregnant woman can run) from the station to the car.

5.55pm: Walk in to preschool (puffing) and see small boy happy but bleeding. The staff explain that he was "spinning around" and collided with a table. His eyelid is gashed.

6pm: Bundle bleeding boy into car, go straight to our GP (who thankfully works late on a Thurs).

6.20pm: GP takes one look and says "That will need stitches, it's too deep to glue." Followed by "I can't really do that here, he needs to be sedated."

6.40pm: Scoff quick takeaway and get changed into trackies for long-haul wait at local hospital ... one of the city's busiest.

6.55pm: Realise the fuel light on the car has been on for 3 days...

7pm: Fuel car, drive to hospital. 40 or so people ahead of us. Swine flu masks. Antibacterial hand gels ... oh SO gross.

8pm: See triage nurse. She pronounces: "Oh, they'll probably glue that." Huh? Then why couldn't the GP.

9pm: Go through to paediatrics, who confirm he WILL need stitches and therefore sedation. We are asked if he's eaten anything recently. The answer (stupid, stupid us gave him a banana in the waiting room without thinking) is yes. Much fretting.

9.10pm: Advised we may need to bring him back in the morning.

9.15pm: Paediatricians confer and decide that since E is so quiet and calm they will attempt to stitch. Topical anaesthetic applied.

10.20pm: Called in to small room. Child gets on table happily. Is administered laughing gas - most intrigued to watch the balloon on the apparatus go up and down. Lays perfectly still as two stitches are put in.

10.50pm: Allowed home.

10.55pm: Having not cried a single tear, boy melts down (well, he had been awake since 7 that morning) because we're apparently "not listening" to him. Cries at top volume. All the way home.

11.10pm: Walk in the door. Read obligatory bedtime stories as quickly as possible.

11.30pm: Fall into bed, both wrecks....