Max.

Thursday was a day that I will never forget for as long as I live! One of the scariest moments of my parenting life happened that day.
   I was starting the bath for the kids. It had a few inches of water in it when Max's naked self came running in the bathroom and literally jumped into the tub. Of course, he slipped and hit the back of his head full force on the edge of the tub. He started crying, and I held him and comforted him, but his crying sounded muffled. So I told him to look at me. He opened his mouth just a little bit and all I could see was chunky, mutilated, purplish flesh. His whole mouth was swollen. Usually I'm calm in emergency situations, I've learned how to be after all the incidents we've had in our house! But this was too much. I panicked. I started hyperventilating. I didn't know what to do. Maggie was naked in the tub. Max was naked. I had to get him to the hospital but didn't have time to dress everyone. I called Rob in a panic and all I could get out was COME HOME RIGHT NOW! over and over again. But then I realized it would take him a half hr to get home from work. So I called my friend Pam and begged her to come over immediately and watch Connor and Maggie while I took Max.
    All this time I thought Max either bit off his tongue altogether, or at least bit through it, and probably some cheek too. So in between calls I kept telling him not to swallow. I didn't want to lose any tongue if it was salvageable! He was still whimpering, and his mouth looked like it was getting bigger and bigger. I finally took a deep breath and told him I needed to look inside his mouth. He didn't want me to and started crying even more, not wanting to open his mouth. But I coaxed him into it. He opened his mouth.
    And spit out a mouthful of fruit snacks.

   Holy Moly.

   I think I died a little bit.

   He'd been having fruit snacks before his bath, but not wanting to wait to finish his snack before getting in the tub, he shoved about 10 of the purple and red fruit snacks into his mouth and started chewing them all. By the time he'd jumped into the tub, they'd mushed together into the color of bloody flesh. I'd been telling him not to swallow, so he'd kept them in his mouth, crying around them the whole time. I DID cry a little in relief after the realization washed over me that he did not, in fact, bite off his tongue. He still had a sizeable lump on the back of his head, but nothing more! In truth, I'm convinced that if he HADN'T had a mouthful of fruit snacks, he WOULD have bitten through his tongue!!

   I'm a relieved mama. I called Rob and explained what happened. He was relieved too, but found the situation hilarious. As did his boss when he got back to work and told the story. My friend Pam was grateful for no emergency, as she had a terrible bout of the flu herself and was struggling to rush over to our house!
 
   I know that one day it will really happen though. Max will jump off a cliff and break a leg, or decide his favorite sport is BMX, or decide that wrestling an alligator sounds exciting. That's just Max. But I hope next time I can avoid hyperventilating. And now that I think of it, I should probably have the local ER's number on speed dial...

Hooligans

   The adventures never stop. A few nights ago I pulled into the drive after a closing shift. When I opened the garage door I discovered a nice little surprise. A toilet. Not a new one, in a box, no. Our toilet. I sighed and left the van in the driveway, came in the house, and asked Rob if I even wanted to know what happened.

    He decided I did, and told me before I could run away.

   I guess the boys got together with the brilliant idea to flush a diaper. It was genius, really! Who wouldn't think that's a great idea?? The sound of the first flush alerted Rob to foul play. By the time he made it to the hallway to see the debacle, Connor was running for the hills and Max was desperately trying to hold the toilet seat down and the water in. Before Rob could make it to the bathroom for damage control, Max decided the wisest thing to do was really get rid of the evidence by flushing again. Rob said it was like watching a movie in slow motion. The water erupted out of the toilet like a fountain! It took him 6 bath towels to clean it up.

   The diaper was stuck in the gooseneck of the toilet and the only solution was to take the toilet out altogether. He would have been able to put it back in, but when he set it in the garage, it busted a bit. So. Brand new toilet!

   We needed one I guess. Thanks boys, for making home improvement immediate. At least they learned how to put in a new toilet.

  In other news! We took the boys bowling for the first time the other night! Connor absolutely loved it. Max liked it for a minute before he was bored out of his mind. We got one game in before we had to leave and make room for a league coming in. But one was enough for Max!

 

Max bumped his eye on a cart in Target and now has a black eye to go with his mushed fingers. The fingers are looking much better now!

 

 

 

This morning Connor came running into the living room. I was at the sink in the kitchen with my back to him, but he yelled, "MOM!! COMMENCE OPERATION I LOVE YOU!!" (They are a little obsessed with the Power Rangers) It was so sweet! So I turned around to give him a kiss, but this is what I saw.

 

 

    This is one of those days I'm incredibly thankful my father is down at the farm and not drinking coffee in my living room.

    So let's just wash all this down with a little cuteness, shall we? I find it helps.
    
            I'm sorry Bobbi, we've officially stolen B's sunglasses...

   Cheesing for the camera. She's actually saying cheeeeeeeeee!

   Really getting into it.

     Cow says moooooooooo.

 

 

WARNING; Graphic bloody pictures ahead.

    Two days ago I was at work and forgot that my phone was in my pants pocket. Of course, we aren't allowed to have our phones while we're on the clock. But it rang. Loudly. I felt bad, pulled it out of my pocket to ignore the call. It was Rob. I was annoyed because he knew better than to call me at work. A few seconds later it rang again. Something was up. So I asked my supervisor for a quick break and ran to the back to answer.
 
    I could barely hear Rob say "We need to go to Instacare!" over the sound of screaming and crying in the background.
 
    We have a heavy wooden garbage can holder in our kitchen. You open it up and the can sits nicely inside. Max pulled it down on himself and smashed his fingers. There was blood everywhere, a fingernail shifted off to the side of the finger, a part of finger hanging off the tip. It was pretty bad.

    I couldn't leave work, but Rob stopped by on his way to the hospital so I could get a few hugs and kisses in. I could hardly stand the sight of the blood covering his shirt.

    I called Rob later that night to see how it went at the hospital. He said the dr would have liked to give him stitches but didn't want to fight to hold Max down while he did it. And he didn't even glue the finger back together. He just wrapped it up, gave a prescription for antibiotics, and sent them on their way.

    Well, alright. Obviously if the doctor didn't think it was too bad, then fine.

   Last night I found myself driving Max back to Instacare in a blinding rage. We were putting fresh bandages on him. When we pulled the old ones off I was sick to my stomach. That was the first time I had seen his fingers and I was shocked that the doctor thought not putting stitches on him was ok! Our fumbling fingers weren't going to be able to wrap his fingers back up without doing more damage, so we did our best and I got him in the car. The rage hit me suddenly on the road. I started seeing flashing lights and had a hard time breathing. I called Rob immediately and he managed to calm me down before I walked into Instacare ready to tear into somebody. It wouldn't have done any good.
 

    We had a very good nurse and a very good (different) doctor. He was really concerned about Max's fingers and agreed that they should have been sutured. But it had been too long now to do it. He x-rayed Max and found a fracture that the other dr had not even taken the time to consider. Unfortunately, nothing more could be done for him now. But they did glue little bandage strips to the tips of his fingers to bring the pieces back together before wrapping him up again.

   This whole time, I couldn't stop being amazed by my sweet Max. He didn't want to go to the doctor, and at first he was scared and crying because he thought he was going to get a shot. But once he was assured he wouldn't, he was a tough kid. He was friendly and curious. He was sweet, and he never once complained when he was being poked and prodded. I was a proud Momma!
       
    He had to soak his fingers for a while, and they gave him some tongue depressors to play in the water with. He has the greatest laugh!

   He got to take his x-ray picture home and show Connor his bones.

   When we got home he got to sleep in bed with Mommy and Daddy. Daddy chose to sleep in Max's bed after a few minutes of getting rolled over and smacked in the face. I got very little sleep as Max had nightmares all night. He talks in his sleep. It was very clear what he was dreaming about. :(  But today he is 100% himself again.

    Now I've had enough of my kids getting hurt. I really hope we can avoid any further trips to Instacare, or even calls into our insurance nurse hotline. Or poison control.

Good vs Evil, in which evil might win.

  This has been an unfortunately eventful week. Especially for Max. First off, Connor swung a tension rod at Max and scratched his cornea pretty badly. Poor kid couldn't keep his eye open for more than a few seconds at a time. But by bedtime he was feeling alright and the next day was back to normal.

  Yesterday Connor got hold of the weed killer in our garage and sprayed Max... in the eyes.

   Hmm. I'm sensing a theme here.

  I think I'll strap safety glasses onto Max's head and tell him it's what Power Rangers wear to ensure they stay put. Or maybe a full-face helmet.

  Anyway, I rinsed his eyes as well as I could while he squirmed and fought to get away from the water, which is obviously MORE POISONOUS THAN WEED KILLER MOM!!!! He had red splotches from his eyes down to his cheeks before bed, but he could see just fine and his eyes weren't bothering him at all. And once again, thankfully, he's back to normal today.

   A few nights ago, the kids were in bed, the house was quiet, and I was settling into my bed with my laptop to update this here blog. I got my mug of steaming peppermint tea and poured it onto my stomach. Oh yeah, and onto my laptop. I guess I just felt like burning and screaming and killing an expensive piece of technology. I killed it dead. Fortunately, the hard drive is fine. My dear husband (Who completely ignored my cries of agony) just needs to transfer all my pictures and whatnots from it to his. And I'm not allowed to drink anything near a computer again.

   Thursday afternoon I got stung by a wasp at work. I was in drive-thru that day. I've never been stung by a bee before so didn't know how my body was going to respond. But nothing happened! Until 6 hours later when I got hit with dizziness and couldn't even stand up. My parents picked me up from work, practically carried me to the van, drove me home, and Rob helped me get to bed without throwing up. And then the next afternoon I was back to normal. Thank goodness all these awful things haven't lasted long.

   In the mean time we did crafty things...

 

 

And we bought tents. Connor wanted to sleep in his that night. After he fell asleep this is what I found:

 

 

And Maggie got a tent.

 

 

And we spent 10 minutes at the park before Max was walking around with butt cheeks clenched hollering "I NEED TO GO POOOOOPPPPYYYYYYY!"

 

 

And we started a new tradition with the boys snuggling up to me before bed telling me wild and imaginative bedtime stories. It helps me to forgive them for being insubordinate and crazy during the days. It makes me like them just a little bit again.

 

 

Just a little.

 

I'd say the week was balanced out pretty well. Nobody died. That's a plus.

 

Goodbye Fall?

   I'm sitting here eating some home-made cinnamon raisin swirl toast for breakfast and looking out our living room window at the SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN.
  
   Snow. Already. My body can't decide if it wants to be excited or slip into a light depression yet. I think I'll try to go for excitement, since we are supposed to be back to high 70's and low 80's by Sunday. We ran the heater last night. It's still on for the moment and it has that warm metallic smell that makes me want to knit scarves all day while curled up on the couch. Listening to Enya. Of course, there are no children in this daydream.

   Let's see, what's the latest adventures we've had? Oh yeah. Max shoved a rock up his nose a few days ago. I had a little panic attack when he came in telling me he couldn't get the rock out. But it came out just fine when I made him blow his nose into a Kleenex. Phew.
   And then Wednesday, Max (again) ((always?)), decided to pull a drawer halfway out of my very wide, very old, very heavy dresser and stand in it. Yeah, that sucker toppled. Maggie and Connor were his audience, but luckily they were far enough out of the way. When I ran in, Max was climbing out from under the mess unscathed. That was not a good moment for me. It brought flashbacks of speeding to Urgent Care with Connor in my arms in the backseat of the van. Remember?

 

I wish I'd gotten a picture of his profile so you could see how far his forehead protruded beyond his nose. That was a scary day.

 

Now that my bedroom door is kept locked all day long, I'm hoping to reduce the amount of damage that can be done. Maggie is the only one with a dresser, and when she is no longer in her crib at night, that thing is being bolted to the wall. I don't care how many holes we make.

 

Now I can't even see the mountain for the wall of snow that is coming our way.

 

And the flakes that are coming down in our yard now.

 

I don't think I'm very excited yet.

 

 

 

 

Bad Mom

   I'm feeling a cold coming on, so I've been a little under the weather. If under the weather means dead behind the eyes and immobile.

   Which means I have been feeding the kids, but leaving them to their own devices otherwise.

  And then this happened.

 

Poor sweet girl. I have no idea if she hit my bed or my dresser, or if she was pushed or just fell. But we rocked and rocked and I told her how sorry I was that she was stuck with such a mean mom.