Things I pondered during The Great Wait of 08.

Yesterday, you'll recall, I spent sitting in the ER with Ann...

The 'hurry up my baby is bleeding from her head' portion of the emergency has passed and we have reached the 'now wait for a long, long, long time' time.

My baby, who is holding a wet, bloody cloth to her head and leaning on me and whimpering, is tired and just wants to go home. I, being eternally optimistic, tell her it will be over soon.

I begin to look around the Emergency Room waiting area, and notice something; a shocking lack of actual emergency. In fact there was great calmness. People were laughing and watching one of the 5 million TVs playing on every wall. I begin to think that perhaps if people did not use the ER for their own personal general health doctor, perhaps my baby, who is BLEEDING FROM HER HEAD could get seen by a doctor sometime before the Second Coming.

I also notice that there are a lot of TVs. It is one waiting room with all the chairs faced one general direction, and yet there are TVs on all the walls spaced approximately 5 feet apart. I start to think that perhaps if they did not invest so heavily in our entertainment, they could afford more doctors and nurses and we would not have to spend so much time waiting. Then I realize it is perhaps not so much our entertainment they are after, as much as it is our pacification. If we just stare mindlessly at the sparkly boxes on the wall we won't realize we have been waiting here for a sweet forever.

Finally, mercifully, they call us back to the inner sanctum. We are taken to a small room where a nice lady checks Ann's pulse and other vitals. It is deemed that she is in no danger of imminent expiration (a good thing since we've been here for hours by now) and we are told to take the file and follow the yellow brick road green line. Where the green line ends we find a desk, unmanned. There is a sign next to the unmanned desk at the end of the green line that tells us to leave our file on the desk and go wait in the green waiting room to the right.

We do as we are told and go sit in the next waiting room. In the first waiting area of the Emergency room there are many people. In the next phase of waiting there are no people, you begin to wonder of you have descended into some unknown area, a hospital purgatory if you will. The ever present TV is blaring on the wall. It is on a cartoon show, unlike the TVs in the other waiting room. Those were on things like The Tyra Banks Show and Entertainment Tonight. I can only imagine the new vocabulary my daughter has learned, but I digress.

We sit in the green waiting room for a while listening to the most obnoxious cartoon imaginable. I do not exaggerate here, as evidenced by the fact that my 9 year old daughter asked if we could just turn it off and read. Yeah, it was that bad. I turned of the TV and we read several chapters in her book. (I am a seasoned ER mom. I don't care how much blood you have lost, I am taking that extra second to grab a book.)

Finally, at long and merry last, we are taken into a room where the very kind male nurse informed me that she has a laceration in her forehead that will require stitches. Ya think?

We are seen, pretty quickly actually, by the lady doctor who sticks needles into the laceration to numb it. It was at this point that the mama just about hit the deck, but I took a deep breath and decided if my 9 year old baby had to experience it, I could at lease be in the room while they did it.

Once her head was put back together, the lady doctor and I discussed the need for a CT scan. After an extensive amount of poking and prodding it was determined that no she did not need a CT scan, but she did have a mild concussion and should be watched.

We were done. It was time to go. And only a mere 4 hours! But wait, not so fast. My paperwork was incorrect. It had gotten mixed up with someone else's and needed to be reworked. If I could just wait a minute, they'd fix it and we'd be on our way.

This was true...45 minutes later.

Well, at least we finished the book. (SEE! Eternally Optimistic!)

Some call it Multitasking

So what did you do today? Bake something? Clean a little bit? Get the kids off to school? Do school at home with the kids? Make breakfast for your husband?

Yeah, not me. I spent the day in the ER. I can’t tell you how much I HATE spending the day in the ER.

Ann decided she wanted to combine two of her favorite activities; tree climbing and scooter riding. Word of Wisdom: Don’t ride your scooter in the tree. It will only end badly.

It will end with you falling out of the tree and the scooter will land on your head.

It will end like this.



Then you will spend the rest of the day waiting, like this.



For hours and hours and hours,



And then some more hours.

She currently has three stitches and a mild concussion.

I am SO ready for bed.

Offsides! Or something.

We worshiped at Soccer Field Church again this Sunday. I learned my lesson last time and didn't drink too much coffee beforehand so I did not have to visit the scary port-a-potties there.


Here is a photo of my kiddo getting ready to head the ball. See the ball waaaaay up there? How does that not hurt when you head a ball from that high I ask? Amazing he does not come home shorter after a soccer game.


See me? I am so confused. What the heck are they doing out there? Which goal is ours? What in the world do those hand signals that he ref keeps making mean?

I'm a slow learner.

"Holding! Illegal use of the hands, 10 yard penalty, first down." coming from the ref in a football game. That I understand.

This soccer stuff is foreign to me.


And if you're wondering how the game went. This is one of Will's teammates. He did this a lot during the game. It did not end well.

Silly Putty: A Substance From The Dark Side

A Public Service Announcement.

It takes a great deal of vegetable oil and a fine tooth comb to get silly putty out of very fine, long, silky hair.

It also takes a great deal of patience.

Silly Putty and oil, left in very fine, long, silky hair, for any length of time will leave a residue that even the most astringent shampoo will not remove.

I’ll let you know how long it takes for the residue to wear off, when I know.

Never, never, sleep with silly putty.

Family Photo

This is the family photo I like. I still don't know how they got so big.



This one is okay, but Will's head is floating. He had on a dark navy shirt that blended into the black background.



Will appears to be sneering in this one and Ann has a goofy look.



This one I like, but Will's head is floating again.



And here are Sir D and I. Holy cow! Who's that slightly pudgy middle aged lady? I know it's not me cuz last time I looked I was a smokin' hot, skinny teenager, right? And what happened to Sir D's hair? I remember running my fingers through those thick locks...um, never-mind.

Some days I really worry about that boy.

Scene:

14 year old boy laying on couch. Supposed to be studying for a science test, but instead has the papers lying on his head.

Mom: You know you have to actually study those papers. You can't lay them on your head and hope that the information will seep into your brain.

Bob, peeking out from under the papers: True. What if I eat it?

To Quote Chicken Little...

I thought about writing about the yummy taco soup I made last night, or the fact that my 14 year old son has decided he wants to look into becoming a Fireman or a Police man. Just what every mother wants to hear; that her son has decided go into a profession where he’ll either be required to run into burning buildings or get shot at.

I could write about the fact that my girls would rather have a messy room than play with their friends or watch TV. I know this because they cannot do either until it’s clean, and they are not cleaning it.

I could write about the fact that I’m making real headway on my book which is exciting, though somewhat disturbing since all I can think about is my characters and what they are doing and what they will do etc, and you know, that’s disturbing because they don’t actually exist.

But I’m not going to write about any of those things because there is something bigger that has me just a little freaked out. Normally I don’t listen to the Chicken Little types who run around telling you that the Sky is falling. There all the same, those types that spread fear.

The thing is though, this time it’s not the fear monger types that are running around yelling ‘The Sky Is Falling!’ It’s financial conservatives and liberals alike. ‘Economic Experts’ like the economics editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal and president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse and other big smart important people I used to ignore.

One lady asked if the thousand dollars she had stashed in a federal credit union was safe. The expert replied that yes it was. Even if the bank failed there are safeguards in place to make sure you will get your thousand dollars out, and then you’ll be able to go buy a tank of gas with it, so great will be the devaluation of our dollar.

They were actually saying it might be a good idea to stock up on non perishable food items while you’re money is still worth something.

I don’t mind saying people, I’m gonna have to stop watching the news because while I have not yet seen the effects of this mess that Washington has made, I’m told that hurt is a-commin’ and it’s starting to freak me out.

Perhaps it’s time to go to Wal-Mart and stock up on TP and canned veggies.

I'm Home

I pulled up in the driveway at about 8:30 last night and was immediately greeted by kids running toward me with hugs and kisses. Even the teens! Okay there was less running and fewer kisses from them, but there were hugs!

I slept so well last night, listening to Sir D breathing beside me and knowing all my kiddoes were downstairs safely in their beds. I was home with my people where I belong.

This morning I woke up late and so did the kids. I know Sir D did not get them to bed on time all weekend. He likes to let them stay up late, mostly because he's gone in the morning when the're grumpy. But it's okay. I love for them to have Daddy-time.

It is raining outside to day. I love rainy days. I feel like staying in my PJ's again today and just playing with my kids, reading books, writing...

Sadly, it is back to reality today. I have some chores to do, some school to oversee with the kids.

Life can't be lived in my PJ's, but a girl can dream.

Back to work...

It's A Flurry of Activity!

Since I have eversomuch time on my hands today I have done not one, but two reviews on my Homeschool Review Blog today.

Go check it out.

Happy Saturday!

Good morning! I realize it may not actually be morning, right now when you are reading this, but it is morning when I am typing it and it seemed a proper greeting.

I am currently sitting on the bed in the hotel room, surrounded by junk food and nice clean white linens and NO ONE else. I am alone in the hotel room. ALONE.

Now, perhaps I am sounding too happy about this. I do love my people dearly. I do actually choose to stay home with them and teach them at home and be with them always, because I love them. But sometimes my brain needs a break from all the stimuli. There is precious little stimuli in this hotel room.

There is no talking. There is no tv on or radio playing anywhere. There are no ridiculously large teenage boys bumping onto everything and shaking the place when the walk. There are no bouncing little girls. There is no dinner to cook, no laundry to wash, no dishes to do, no floor to clean; I could go on but I think you get the point.

My friend had to get up and go to a seminar at the hotel, poor dear, so she'll be out most of the day. I could have slept in after she left, but strangely enough I didn't want to waste my alone time. So I'm up drinking coffee and writing. In my PJ's.



This is my uniform for the weekend. There might be a slight variation in the color of the PJ's if I should happen to spill something on these. I did come prepared with extras just in case. Once a girl scout always a girl scout.



Funny thing though. Even though I brought all that stuff, I only brought one change of clothes. That is mostly stuff to do and eat while I am alone here in the hotel room. There are more books in there than clothes.

My inner teenager is horrified, but the Mom in me, the one who wants to lay abed all weekend and read and write won out.

Enjoy your Saturday, I know I will!