blood simple

Nate has been waking up at night crying. It's unusual for him and it's difficult to guess the cause. It may be that he's lonely, or hungry, or had a bad dream. We try to let him work through it and fall back asleep on his own. One night he woke at about 5am and was crying. Hard. The crying seemed to get worse and I got out of bed, half asleep in the dark, to check on him. I could tell right away it wasn't a normal event. Even in the dark I could see a problem. I turned on the night light to see he had a bloody nose. It had bled all over. He's taken to sleeping with as many stuffed animals as will fit in his crib and every one was covered in blood. Jen came to the rescue and stopped the bleeding right away while I changed the sheets and pulled the bloody stuffy's out. We brought him into the pediatrician later that day. He's had a couple of bloody noses in the last few weeks. They were unconcerned. Everything looked pretty normal to them. They recommended we squirt his nose with saline a couple times a day. It seems to have done the trick. No bloody noses since that event.

Imagine this image but covered in blood and you'll get an idea of what the event was like.