Following

It struck me this morning that being a mom is a lot like playing "Follow the Leader".  I went down to the basement to put a load of clothes in the dryer and Malachi and Israel came trickling down after me.  While there I realized that my washer was becoming dirt encrusted around the top, so I went upstairs to get a paper towel. 

"She's going upstairs!" said Israel, and they trooped right after me up to the kitchen. 

Then I turned around and took the paper towel back down to the basement, where they of course followed me again. 

This morning I got plenty of enjoyment out of them following me up and down repeatedly, especially sicne it takes them longer to get up the stairs, only to find when they got there that I was going back down.  I had to chuckle inwardly about that one.

This kind of thing happens a lot.  If I got to the bathroom, they want to come too.  If I lock them out of the bathroom, they sometimes beat on the door and wail for me to let them in.  If I go upstairs, they are sure to follow, unless they are distracted.  Even then it is only a matter of time.  If I'm gone for more than a few minutes, they want to know what I'm doing. 

Sometimes even Aaron will follow me around the house when he's home.  That part is kind of cute, actually.  It lets me know that he still likes being around me, even after six years. 

In a way, I guess it lets me know that they all like me, and they just want to be with me, which is nice.  It's encouraging, especially when I know that at times I'm probably not so nice to be around.  Sometimes I lose my temper with the boys, and more often, they lose their temper about every little thing that doesn't go their way.  Between me yelling at them, and them screaming at me, it could become difficult to tell whether we like each other at all.  And then they follow me, up and down, down and up, up and down.  That's as good as an "I love you" for me. 

What a Day

I find it interesting, for lack of a better word, the way that life can go from normal to freaky in a split second.  I doubt I ever noticed it before I became a mother, but I seem to have an over-abundance of opportunities now. 

I've written previously of some of my other experiences, which have included steak knives being smuggled to the park, a bloody nose at McDonald's, and being screamed at by a stranger.  I have to say that what happened today outreaches them all on my own personal thermometer of difficult days. 

This morning I had a meeting at ten o'clock, so afterward I decided to just take the boys over to Burger King and get some lunch.  I had my friend Hannah with me because she babysat the kids that were at the meeting and I had given her a ride. 

We were having a nice time at the playplace; nobody was kicking anyone else in the face or hitting other kids.  I was alternating between eating, talking to Hannah, trying to feed Simeon who was tired and a little testy, and governing the other other boys. 

Suddenly, a horrific scene played out before my eyes.  It was one of those moments when I could see what was going to happen, and there was no way for me to change it.  It played out in slow-motion before me, and yet I could never have moved fast enough to stop it. 

Izzy had decided to give Simeon a ride in his high chair.  In theory, this wasn't a bad thing.  At McDonald's the high chairs have wheels and it is very easy for the older boys to push Simeon around in them.  The Burger King high chairs, however, do not have wheels.  On some other occasion, Izzy might have tried the same thing, and it might have worked, but today the odds were against him. 

He pushed Simeon about three feet before I even knew what he was doing.  I just happened to look over at them at the exact moment that Israel pushed on the high chair and instead of gliding forward, it toppled right over.  And Simeon hit the floor face first.  Or I should say, mouth first. 

Hannah and I both immediately ran over to him, but she was closest and quickly got him upright.  I am pretty sure that she was thinking more clearly than I was, in spite of the fact that she is only sixteen, and I'm sure she was probably somewhat horrified at the whole situation. 

Simeon's mouth was bleeding profusely.  It's not a sight I could ever have prepared for.  I grabbed some napkins and tried to keep him from bleeding everywhere.  Hannah, fortunately mentioned his teeth to me or I probably wouldn't have thought to check them. 

His front teeth had been knocked loose and were shoved back.  Hannah's mom, Renee, who is also a friend of mine, had mentioned not too long ago that if a child gets a tooth knocked loose or knocked out that you should put it back right away and the gums will swell around it and hold it in place so they won't lose it. 

I had no other option but to reach into his mouth and move his teeth back into the correct position before the swelling started.  It was something that I had hoped I would never have to do.  I really had no idea whether I had put them back the right way or not, because there was so much blood I couldn't see. 

A Burger King lady rushed in with napkins and ice and said something about filling out a form.  We cleaned him up as best we could and I tried to put the ice on his mouth, but he wouldn't have it. 

Finally, I picked him up and just held him.  Dn't ask me why I didn't do that in the first place.  I have no idea.  Now it seems obvious that I should have held him immediately and to hell with worrying about all the blood.  That's just not what happened. 

I sat with him and waited for the BK lady to come back with whatever form she was talking about while I tried to comfort my poor little boy.  His teeth had stopped bleeding, but he had a nasty gash or two on his bottom lip from his teeth when he hit the floor.  After a few minutes I realized how stupid it was to be waiting for a form when my baby was bleeding and upset, and decided to just leave.

Hannah had a dental appointment, so I dropped her off at her grandma's, who lives not far from where she needed to go.  Then I went over to her parents' house because last week I lost my cell phone, and therefore had no way to call anyone when this happened.  I cannot even adequately describe the frustrating helpless feeling of not being able to call anyone. 

When I got to their house, another friend was there too, and I was mildly comforted by the thought of having two other moms to consult with on the situation.  The older boys went off to play, and I took Simeon inside.  Renee gave me a cold washcloth to see if we could clean him up and get a better look, and then got some infant tylenol to give to him.  He didn't like having the medicine administered, so I just held him for a while and he started to fall asleep. 

The general consensus was that I probably didn't need to take him to the doctor, so after that I just called Aaron to tell him what had happened.  I had held it together pretty well up to that point, but of course, I cried when I told him what had happened. 

I stayed at their house for a little while, but I knew I had to go home sometime.  I laid Simeon, sleeping, on the couch, and gathered the big boys into the van to go home.  Renee was kind enough to let me borrow her cell phone since I lost mine, and since I don't have any other phone at home. 

I took them all home and got Simeon settled into his crib, then put the other boys down for a nap as well.  After that, I called our doctor's office, just to make sure I shouldn't take him in. 

Normally, I'm not a person who likes to go to the doctor over everything, but seeing him bleed like that caused me to think twice.  To my relief, they let me talk to a nurse right away, and she reassured me that I had done everything right and told me to try to put some ice on it or let him eat a posicle or ice cream cone to help the swelling go down.  It seemed like he would be fine, and I was very relieved about that, but I also felt very shaky, and emotionally I was completely drained. 

Later, after he woke up from his nap I gave him a dose of ibuprofen and cut up a strawberry popsicle (okay, it was two strawberry popsicles) for him, which he thoroughly enjoyed.  Between the popsicles and the ibuprofen, he was almost his normal happy self, aside from his poor little fat lip. 

We ended the night with a bath--he was all sticky from the popsicles and a vanilla milkshake that he drank some of, but mostly dumped on himself.  I realize that it sounds horrible that I gave my child popsicles and a milkshake for dinner, but they seemed like good options for a kid whose mouth is all busted up.  The rest of us had breakfast for dinner--egg and cheese bagels with blueberry muffins. 

Tomorrow I have the option of going to a park with some other moms...but at this point I'm not sure I dare to leave my house.

No Fireworks For You

Aaron and I will have been married for six years this month, and until last night have never gone to see fireworks on the fourth of July.  In fact, even before we got married we didn't go see them. 

Last night, for the first time, we actually planned on seeing them.  We went over to a friend's house because you can see the Country Club fireworks from his backyard.  We took all the boys with us, along with a pack-n-play so Simeon could go to sleep.  We had hamburgers and brats, and put Spiderman on to keep the little guys from destroying the house we were visiting (they don't have any kids yet, so everything was very "in place").  Aaron's brother and his wife and their baby came too.  

It's been very hot lately, but suddenly yesterday it turned cold and rainy.  Still, we had high hopes that the rain would subside and there would still be fireworks.  We hung out and talked and waited for them to start. 

While we waited, we would occasionally hear firecrackers or see one or two fireworks set off by neighbors.  The boys were very excited.  We had ice cream (even though we were cold) and waited for the big show.  We finished our ice cream and waited even longer.  We waited until almost 11 pm, but the fireworks never came.  It was very disappointing.  

Malachi couldn't figure out why there weren't any big fireworks.  He didn't seem to think rain should have any affect on whether or not there was a big fireworks show.  We gathered all our little people and took them home to their beds, shrugging and saying, "Well, we tried." 

I am beginning to wonder if for some bizarre reason, I am not meant to see a fireworks show on the fourth of July.