Split-Lip....Ouch!

Alex likes to help with anything that has to do with Aren.  He's crazy about his little brother.  The other morning he had an opportunity to throw a diaper in the trash for me.  He took off towards the kitchen to throw it away as I put a fresh cloth dipe on the baby.  Suddenly I heard a crash and a scream.  This wasn't the typical "ow, I'm hurt" cry, it was a scream that had me sprinting into the kitchen to see Alex walking slowly towards me.  His mouth was open in a silent cry and his eyes were tear-filled and wide open telling me he was in pain.  I looked behind him to try to get an idea of what had happened. 

To get a better idea of how he hurt himself, let me describe this portion of my house to you.  We have a rectangular "back to back" kitchen (I call it back to back because if one person is standing at the sink and another person is standing at the stove, they're basically standing back to back).  You have to take one step down into the utility room where we keep our trash can.

Apparently, Alex had taken a little stool to the kitchen - it wasn't a step stool, it was a little folding stool, about two feet high, with a round black seat to sit upon.  He, I guess, was standing on the stool to throw the diaper away and somehow or another the stool either slipped out from under him (which Biju had warned him just the day before that it might do!), or he put it too close to the edge of the stair and as he climbed up it slipped off the edge.  
So there was the stool, laying on it's side next to the trashcan, the diaper over by the washing machine, and Alex's mint gum laying on the floor, exactly where it had fallen out of his mouth as he landed.

I looked back at Alex and blood was startig to pool in his still open mouth.  I scooped him up and tried comforting him while taking him to the bathroom to rinse his mouth out.  I inspected the outside of his mouth to see if he had bit completely through the lip.  I saw a mark but couldn't quite tell if it was from biting through the lip or just a mark from where he hit the floor.  I called my mom, first, to ask if they normally put stitches on the inside of a lip.  Her response "Ohh, noo." and then a little bit of laughter, then "What happened?"  I figured she'd know best considering my older brother, as a young toddler, fell down some stairs and bit off the tip of his tongue (I think.  Either that or he did bite through his lip.  Or both.).

I then called the pediatrician whose nurse advised that I keep ice on it (we were using the ice cube from a Boo Bunny) and suggested giving him a popsicle to help him keep the cold directed to where it was needed.  He didn't mind that treatment at all!

He was a good sport about it all, even with Mommy asking him to push his lip out so I could get a better look at the cut (and pictures, too!).  By the time Daddy got home and we showed him, it had bruised up even more.

Shortly after the fall.

Taking his medicine like a man (or, like a kid).

The mark under his lip from falling, the next day.

Ugly lip bruise.

Just had to throw this in there - the two boys zoning out on Angry Birds.

What lip pain?? I'm just excited I can hold the baby all by myself!!