rites of passage

"c'mon guys, let's go!" i yelled again for the third time. everyone had put on their shoes, everyone was waiting to go, except phoebe. ty was trying to wrestle her out of the room so we could get in the car and head home. after spending almost 2 hours at the junk yard looking for car parts, he was spent.
it was the end of our trip, rodney was besides himself with overtiredness and on the edge of hysterics.

we were almost out the door. ty was coming with phoebe, when out of the side of my eye i see abby flying parallel to the ground. i hear a large thud. it takes a second to put two and two together, i slowly look over and see her head gashed against the brick fireplace. her eyes are a mile wide. i put down rodney as fast as possible, without dropping him. swooped down to abby, and pushed my hand, that luckily had a wipey in it, hard into the hole in her head and carried her to the bathroom. if there is any a time that i am calm and in control, it is in emergency situations like this. no crying, no hysteria, just calmness that washes over my body. ty and willow look for bandaids and butterfly bandages (thank heavens, i don't even have those at my house!).  "ok, abby" he says, "i'm just going to tape the owie back together alright?". she nods her head slowly. i take off the wipey (we're onto the 5th one by now), ty lifts up the butterfly, his eyes open too much, his face tightens, he looks at me, i bend over and look at the wound. it's too deep. not too wide, but way way way too deep.

and so, an hour later we have our first child with stitches. 7 to be exact.  we've had 2 trips to the ER, a NICU baby,  a few cases of nurse maid's elbow, 3 calls to poison control, one call to 911 (thanks phoebe) and now stitches. we are slowly becoming parents through all of these fiascos.

in other news we had a plumbing leak two weeks ago that was pricey, our new dvd player quit on us and our air conditioner went out in the family wagon again.  but isn't that just life? the adult life that your parents tried to protect you from? growing up i was always kind of aware what was going on in the house, when things broke, when money was tight, but ty was completely oblivious. he had in ideal childhood. i keep reminding him that all families go through this stuff. all families have 5 expensive things break within a month. all families have bills that never go away. all families have kids that bash their heads in 30 seconds before leaving for home. right? right? please tell me we aren't the only ones.

abby wanted this ice cream as her reward for extreme bravery in a scary situation. have you been there before? it was perfect for us because they had dairy free, sugar free options for moi!!! insert happy dance. i had rice milk, berries, almonds and agave nectar and felt like a normal person. i could get ice cream like everyone else!