It was a four hour drive to Burnet. Both girls were very excited to see baby Jesus, though, so we passed part of the time by talking about the story of Jesus's birth. When it got dark, Addie looked up and saw stars. "Look!" she said, "There is the star to show where baby Jesus is!"
When we arrived we had to wait in line for another hour and a half before we got in. Finally, we walked through the gates and it almost seemed like we were transported into another world. The first thing we saw were campfires and people cooking their dinner. Charlotte wanted to climb out of her stroller to get a better look. As she was climbing out, the stroller began to collapse. I opened the stroller again, not realizing that Charlotte's was holding onto it. Charlotte started screaming. One of the men cooking dinner warned me, "You have to be careful with those donkeys, they really hurt when they kick." Both Sean and I thought that her leg was what got pinched. I picked her up and began examining her legs, both of them seemed fine so I started talking to her and trying to calm her down (I didn't want to ruin the spirit of the evening for the other guests). Then I noticed that her hands were COVERED in blood. And my coat was COVERED in blood.
The next few minutes are kind of a blur. One of the actors, who was a nurse, rushed over when she saw what was going on. She whisked Charlotte and I off to the bathroom to take a better look (Bethlehem was only lit by candles and lanterns). Even in the dim light I was pretty sure it was going to need stitches - but when we got to the bathroom and I got a better look, I almost passed out. Her finger was mangled, I'm amazed that she didn't loose the tip. Thankfully, this wonderful lady kept calm, took Charlotte from me, washed her up as best she could, and wrapped up her finger. Charlotte calmed down a bit, as long as I was putting pressure on her finger she would just whimper rather than scream. The nurse told us that Charlotte's finger would need stitches and gave us directions to the emergency room, which was just a few miles down the road.
Charlotte didn't want to go to the car, though, she wanted to see Baby Jesus. So the nurse led us back through Bethlehem and we took 5 minutes to look at Baby Jesus. I wish we had been able to see the whole thing, it really was amazing. Then we got in the care and headed off to the E.R.
Charlotte did really well in the E.R. Being such a small town, we got in very quickly and the doctor saw us right away. Right before the doctor started stitching up Charlotte's finger, somebody came in complaining of chest pain, so the doctor had to leave us to attend to the new patient. Both Charlotte and Addie fell asleep waiting for the doctor to come back. An hour later the doctor returned and put three stitches in Charlotte's finger. There was quite a bit of crying, but she did really well (especially when Sean started telling her that he would get her ice cream when she was done). Once her finger was bandaged up, Charlotte gave a half-smile and said, "my finger is all betters!"
We left the hospital at 11:30 p.m., long after Bethlehem had closed, and began our long drive back to Houston. We stopped to get gas before we left town. Sean got the girls an ice cream sandwich to share. When he gave Charlotte her ice cream she said, "Daddy, you make me so happy!" It was so cute.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), we forgot to bring our camera with us, so we didn't get any pictures of Bethlehem or Charlotte's finger. But here is a picture of her finger when we changed the bandage on Sunday. It looks 100 times better than it did the night before. I'm leaving a large space before the picture, don't look if you get queasy easily...
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