Three Day Recap: A Trip. A House. A Sliver.

Unfortunately, we missed Field Trip Friday this past week. Err, actually, our field trip consisted of a long drive in the car to New York. Note to self: Never, ever leave DC during rush hour on a Friday night. What could have been a 4.5 hour trip turned into a 6.5 hour trip. We discussed with Mason what we saw along the way, but mostly all he cared about was this ...

Are we there yet?

How much longer?

Are we going to be there before dark?

I remember annoying my parents with those questions when I was little. Since when do I have a kid that is old enough to do that? Geesh ... that makes me feel old.

On with the story, right?

We went up to New York ... Binghamton area, not NYC ... for my cousin's graduation party. We stayed in my aunt and uncle's guest house ... no cell phones, no computers and not even any pictures. Gasp! We had a great time hanging out with family and basically doing nothing ... just the way I like it. Ha.

*************

I actually was born in the Binghamton area and we lived there for a short time after I was born. I have been back there only a handful of times in my life, even though I have family that lives there. This time, I decided that I wanted to see the house we lived in when I was a baby.

I'm historical like that.
So yeah, there is the house. I'm told it hasn't changed in 33 years.

*************

They are slivers. Or splinters ... I guess it depends on your use of the English language.

Small.pieces.of.wood. In.his.hand. Yeouch.

So I mentioned we stayed in my aunt and uncle's guest house over the weekend. The house was built in 1800 and something ... so it is real old. The walls were built with wide slats of wood and these days, they are very rustic.

Rustic as in not smooth wood.

Not smooth wood as in you will get a sliver if you touch it.

Mason was trying to take off his swimsuit and lost his balance. Naturally, he put his hand out to catch himself, although he fell when he was doing it. And ran his hand down that very rustic, sliver yielding wood. And screaming ensued. And tears. And yeouches.

My poor baby.

Since his hand was wet from just spending an hour or so in the pool, I think his skin soaked the slivers right up. I got out the tweezers and a needle and went to work. While he screamed and winced. He seriously had about 50 slivers in his hand. After removing about 20, we had to take a break. His hand was completely red and raw. Many of the slivers were really deep, requiring the needle ... and that pretty much put Mason over the edge.
So this is a picture of his hand about 36 hours after it happened ... there are still a good 20 slivers in there. Mason keeps telling me his hand feels better, but I know better than that. Tomorrow I am going to try to remove more after he plays in the pool for awhile.

I'm hoping for success. Hoping. Praying.

Payton lost the fight.

WARNING ... this post is not for those with a weak stomach.

*

*

Don't say I didn't warn ya. Because I did.

*

*

This afternoon, I was making dinner in the kitchen, enjoying life as all three of my kids had themselves happily encompassed in separate activities not more than 15 feet from me. Nobody was bothering anyone.

Ahh ... peace.

Until ... Payton started crying. Crying loudly. Screaming. Screaming at the top of her lungs.

What in the heck? I quickly ran over to her and found this ... the crime scene ...



















Clearly this picture was taken after I removed the culprit from the scene and tended to my daughter. But you get the picture.

The culprit ...



















This guitar had been leaning in the corner behind the piano that Payton was playing with. She must have moved the piano in such a way that it bumped the guitar, causing it to fall.

It fell on her. On her head. It hit her right smack dab in the middle of her forehead.

There was blood everywhere, gushing out of her forehead. A huge pile of blood on the floor as you can see above. I immediately put pressure on her forehead and yelled for Mason to get me some paper towels.

The thing would not stop bleeding. I completely panicked and knew I had to get her to the hospital, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do that with me, three kids and a gushing forehead.

I applied pressure for several minutes until the bleeding slowed down. In the interim, Mason got me the phone so I could call for help. The only problem was my mind was racing so fast that I could barely remember anyone's phone number.

I called my friend Jodi who lives around the corner first ... I figured she could get to me the fastest. NO ANSWER. I called my sister several times. NO ANSWER. I called my husband several times. NO ANSWER. I called my mom several times on two different cell phones. NO ANSWER.

Seriously people!

Those were the phone numbers I knew off the top of my head. My cell phone was elsewhere in the house and I couldn't get to it. I knew I needed to call my sister-in-law, but my brain was not functioning. So ... I have to apologize to the person whose phone number is 414-659-1271 ... I really didn't mean to bother you and I'm sorry if I sounded like a frazzled lunatic ... but at that moment I was. That phone number would be the area code of my sister-in-law's cell phone, combined with portions of my fax number.

Sigh.

I finally pulled myself together and got her number right. SHE ANSWERED. Thank God for her! She said she'd meet me at the hospital and off we went. On our way there, I finally reached my mom and Kyle, both of whom planned to meet me at the hospital too.

Upon arrival, I took this picture of Payton with my cell phone ...

After having Payton's wound numbed and cleaned, I was amazed at how tiny the gash was. The strange thing was that it looked like a hole in her head ... probably about 2mm in diameter. Who knew that so much blood could come from such a small gash? The RN decided that Payton needed to have stitches and agreed that liquid stitches would do the trick. Phew.

But nonetheless, I knew Payton would put up a good fight. We had to restrain her using a pillowcase ... thank God the actual closing of the gash didn't take that long. Although, just a few seconds of what we experienced seemed like an eternity.

Our pretty princess got a McD's happy meal on our way home for being such a champ. Here she is enjoying her fries and chocolate milk ... all while making sure to let us know she has a boo-boo. Poor baby girl ...



















Now I'm off to find that damn guitar ... it is going in the trash!

Did he really just do that?

The other night, we were in the backyard with the kids playing baseball. Mason decided to go stand behind the toddler swing {Lord knows why} and about the same time Kyle decided it would be a good idea to chuck {and I mean chuck} a baseball at the toddler swing. The force of the ball caused the toddler swing to hit Mason in the face and blood gushed everywhere, so much that I thought it was coming out of both nostrils. Poor Mason ... apparently Kyle had forgotten that his aim wasn't the best after trying throwing balls at the dunk tank.