another one bites the dust

Back in January, we had a little, um, incident. Bubby and one of the pillars in our living room got in a fight. Let's just say, the pillar won. He was spinning around, got dizzy and fell head first into the corner of the pillar in our living room. yikes. blood. everywhere. not pretty. We freaked out, took him to ER, the doc put a little super glue on it and sent us on our merry way.

Notice his 'war wound'

Now........fast forward 8 months. August 4th to be exact. Yesterday. Came home from church, brought my nephews home with us, they were going to spend the night and we had some fun stuff planned for today. We were home all of 5 minutes, when we heard a crash, a wail - followed by screams from Sissy, and a "I'm sorry sissy.....I'm sorry!" come from the Bubbs. Jer and I were still downstairs. Jer had just gotten Baby Girl out of her car seat - that's how little we'd been home! So we started heading upstairs. Jer was in front of me, holding Baby Girl. We really weren't in much of a hurry - Sis cries many times throughout the day - so this was nothing uncommon. When he got to the top of the stairs, I heard him cry out "Oh my Lord!" in a shocked and panicky voice.

I must tell you - my blood ran ice cold. I was picturing the worst. There's not a whole lot to make my husband freak out, so when I heard him cry out, I knew it was bad. I just froze. When he got to the top of the stairs, Sis had met him there and had her hands covering her face, and pulled her hands down, and I guess there was just blood all over her face, running all over, and her hands were filled with her blood. Jer quickly took her in the bathroom and got a wet rag and proceeded to try to stop the bleeding so he could see what we were dealing with.

I have to say, I was freaking out at this point. I don't handle blood at all and was basically running in circles upstairs trying to figure out what to do. Do we call 911? Do we call my parents? Did she cut her face open? Is she going to die?!? Seriously, these were the thoughts running thru my head. And now, looking back on it, it's still not exactly "funny", but it is almost humorous, how I was reacting. I was yelling at Jer "what do I do? what do I do?" I tried to figure out from the other 3 kids what had happened. I didn't get too far there. Supposedly it was an accident, and Bubby 'fell' onto Sis and she fell in to the door jamb in his room. They were just playing and he did not do it on purpose, sources say.

Jer told me we would need to take her in, it looked like she would need stitches, or at the very least some glue. And it was taking a good 10 min before it quit gushing blood. So I ran around the house, yelling at the kids "GET IN THE VAN - NOW! WE ARE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL! EVERYBODY! SHOES ON AND IN THE VAN.....NOW!!!!" I went back upstairs and Jer was asking if we really wanted to go walking in to the ER with 5 kids in tow. Ok, so I decided to call my parents. They could come over and watch the kids.

I was scared, out of my mind, but I wanted to be with my baby girl. But I didn't want to go by myself. But I couldn't just leave the other kids. You can see my dilemma.

So after a frantic, scared call to my mom, they were on their way. I ran back downstairs and opened the garage door (at which point Bubby and my 2 nephews were a little frightened and all buckled in the van) and yelled "EVERYBODY! OUT OF THE VAN! GET BACK INSIDE NOW!!!!" You can imagine their confusion. My 5 year old nephew Jonathan said "But why Aunt Sheila? I thought you told us to get in the van?" To which my reply was "I changed my mind! Go upstairs and everyone get their jammies on!"

I tell you what, I was just a basket case. I didn't know which direction I was going. I ran back upstairs, not knowing what to do next. It was somewhere around this point that Jonathan said "maybe we should pray for her?". I just love that kid. :-)

After praying, and somewhat stopping the gushing of blood, Jer carried her downstairs. And we waited for my parents. They arrived shortly after, and we took off. I drove. And my heart was still frantic and I was still somewhat of a mess. Glad there were no cops around. I'm just sayin'. :-)

After arriving, checking her in, realizing the situation is not nearly as serious as we first thought, I began to feel bad for having my parents come out at 10:00 at night, to stay with the kids. We were told it would probably be about a 2 hour wait. yikes. Gotta love emergency rooms. So Jer decided to drive me and Baby Girl home, so I could get all the kids to bed and relieve my parents. He quickly took us home, and came back to wait. During which time, he finally got it to stop oozing blood long enough to get a good look at it - and of course snap a pic on his phone.

This was around 10:30 I believe. Sissy was getting so tired by this point, and ended up falling asleep on Jer in the waiting room. Finally they called them back at about 12:30 (yup......about 2 hrs later!!!! *sheesh*). Here she is lying back in the room, waiting on the doctor.

The doctor came, saw it, said he could glue it together. They had to wake her up, he opened up the wound (which Jer said looked pretty deep, maybe 1/2 an inch or so) and he cleaned it out and disinfected it, then put some glue on it, a bandage, and sent them on their way. My poor baby girl was sure a trooper though. She did great. She was exhausted, but did great.

So.....needless to say, our plans for today had changed (we were originally going to take them to a place with huge slides and inflateables where the kids could bounce and play). We didn't want Sis's bandage to come off, or her to get hit in the head or it to start bleeding again. So we took the kids bowling instead. Something a little less active and crazy. The kids were bummed at first, but I think they all ended up having a fun time. (and the biggest kicker for Sis is, the doctor said 'no swimming for at least 7 days' and to avoid much sunlight - to wear a hat.) How can he even ask this of a very active 5 year old, right before her last week of summer vacation?! She was crushed. We'll just have to make up for it later I guess. When it comes to my kids - better safe than sorry.

So that was our excitement (hopefully for awhile). I am praying for a less exciting, maybe even boring weekend coming up. :-) Oh, and if you have time this weekend or next week, take a dip in the pool for Sissy, will ya?

Our Sunday Celebration

Our church loves parties, and loves to have celebration times. (and if you know our pastors wife at all, you know most of this starts with her excitement over having parties!) Today was no exception. We walked in the foyer of church this morning, to lots and lots of red balloons, sitting in bundles scattered throughout the foyer. (750 balloons, to be exact). We were celebrating the fact that the new building is coming along, and we (actually the construction crew) was putting up the last 2 beams to the new building today. The 2 beams that are a part of the new building and the old. Pastor Jason let out about 11:30, and gave everyone 15 min to gather up their children, and head outside with a balloon and stand on the new "pad" that will serve as our new kidz church area, to watch them place the last 2 beams. After which we would all have our "balloon release". I wish I could say I saw it all happen, but unfortunately, I missed it.

To make a long story short.....Lilly and I were standing back a ways, in the parking lot, because I wanted a good view of all the balloons going up in the sky. Not too long after we got out there, I saw my bro-in-law, Gerald. He was standing on the edge of the pad, and was looking for the kidz from childrens church. (He was working childrens church today, and was suppose to help gather them all together). He was looking out in to the parking lot, at the people coming over, and misjudged his distance from the edge of the pad, and took a step and fell right off there, landing roughly on his left side and banging up his left hand pretty good, on some small beams that were laying there. I seriously thought he broke his arm at first. It did not look like a nice fall at all! Another guy and I helped him in the shuttle bus, and we took him back to the church. His lip was bleeding, and his left hand/wrist up to his elbow was scratched up and bleeding some. After looking at it, he was moving it, and it did not appear to be anything other than scratches and soreness. He sat in the foyer, and I ran to the nursery to get wet paper towels and as I was passing around the back doors, I saw all the red balloons going up in the sky. We missed the big balloon release, but at least Gerald is okay, other than being sore and embarrassed. Here are the 2 photos I managed to take before "the fall"

In the photo above, Gerald was standing at the far right on top of the "pad" and fell down on to those few beams that are laying on the ground. Thankfully, the pad was not any farther from the ground than it was.

My son is up from his Sunday afternoon nap, so I must end this now, as he is jabbering on my lap. :D Will write more later.....