I wish I had a lovely grand excuse of why I haven't blogged in a month - say, a trek to Antarctica or a month in the Pyrenees - but I don't. The school year started and, attendant upon that, all manner of other obligations which have essentially shredded any free time I have into unusable ribbons.
Katie started Kindergarten! The good news: she loves it and her teacher says she's a role model in the classroom. The bad news: I now have to get up at 7:15. Now, I know, 7:15 isn't all that early but, when you work evenings until 1 a.m. or so, it's pretty damn on the 0:dark:30 side of things. It's been hard, too, on Evie who both needs more sleep than she's getting and misses her big sister. She's adjusting slowly but surely. We've started music class again and gym starts next Wednesday; that will help. She has discovered she likes having Mama to herself... and would Matthew please not get in the way! I now am in the astonishing position of having my children fight over who gets to sit with/on me. As annoying as it can be at times, I'm grateful they want to.
Speaking of Evie... I got an awful lesson in my own need to slow down mid-month. The girls had been put to bed but were raising holy Hell. John went to a meeting. I went upstairs to put them back to bed so I could go to work. Livid is probably an accurate term. The crazed whooping should have warned me what I would face. The room, which had been tidy an hour before, was calf-deep in *stuff* from bow to stern; the girls had stripped their pajamas and their beds, strewing bedclothes and bed clothes around like so many crumpled newspapers on a windy evening. I made a (sorry assed) attempt to clear a path and finally just waded into the center of the room. I put Evie's mattress back on her bed. I put the sheet back on the mattress. I couldn't find the pillow or the top sheet or the blanket or Fuzzy Blankie.
I grabbed Evie from where she stood screaming on Katie's bed and, turning around, intended to put her in her bed. I should have moved instead of just turning. It was a little too far and she slipped out of my hands and hit her mouth on the metal of the bed (the girls have wrought iron beds). It was second only to the time I found Katie putting a plastic bag over Evie's head in heartstopping moments. Blood. Everywhere. I was having such a hard time getting it stopped that we called 911. They took one look (and not even a bend down and look kind of look) and said, "she's going to need stitches". By then she'd stopped bleeding (it actually stopped while I was still on the phone with the dispatcher- I looked down and Little Miss Neatnik was stripping her blood-covered shirt saying "ucky!!") so we refused transport and I called John. I'm sure I scared the shit out of him since he couldn't hear much over Evie's screaming other than "I need you to come home". He called 3 times on the way from his meeting and still couldn't figure out what was wrong until we got home.
We gave Evie a choice of who took her to CCMC and, amazingly, she chose me. So, John stayed with the other two and got to clean up the blood and I went off to the hospital for the next 6 hours. (I can't say enough about the staff at Children's - they are wonderful.) She wound up with a radiograph, an iv (for the ketamine), 6 stitches - two under her lip, two on her lip, and two between her upper gum and the inside of her upper lip.
And I wound up with a mother lode of guilt. If I hadn't have been in such a hurry, if I had been more patient, if I hadn't been furious... would I have been more careful, would I have cleaned the space first so I could move, would I have moved more slowly? I don't know. I am clumsy by nature and do overestimate what I'm capable of; I also like to think that, even angry, I'd never hurt my children but then something like this happens and I can't help but wonder. Needless to say, I'm a heck of a lot more cautious about moving children now and keeping a closer guard than ever on my temper. She is doing well now, fortunately, and it doesn't look like there's going to be any scarring. And she still loves me. A fact for which I am SO incredibly grateful.
What else happened this month... dance started up as did religious ed. We're, so far, handling our induction into the public school system with only minor bemusement (shocks me that kids don't go to Open house but do go to parent-teacher conferences - makes no sense to me at all!). The amount of paper that comes home from school is just... something else.
Two choirs have been up and running for a month and I go to my first CONCORA rehearsal tomorrow. October is going to be as bad as December usually is for vocal commitments - this week: 4 rehearsals (2 of which are 3 hours apiece) and 2 services. Next week: 3 rehearsals (but only 1 3 hour jobbie!) and 3 services... etc., etc. Don't get me wrong; I love every minute of it but it's exhausting!
I got and finished an order for 7 bridesmaids necklaces, got another custom order, and a donation request from a repeat customer. I really wish I had more time to create. It makes me a little crazy when I can't.
Then, of course, Katie officially turned 5 and Baby Matthew is no longer a baby, having turned 1 on the 16th.
And that pretty much covers September. October anyone?
3 comments:
Wow, I got tired just reading that. No one with three energetic children the age of your three has any reason to feel guilty about losing her cool once in a while.
Big hugs!! Guilt is a mother's curse. I have two incidents where something happened that made my boy bleed by accident: 1- on A's 2nd birthday he was crawling around the floor and I noticed his pants coming down, I bent over and tugged on them but it made him lose his balance and smack his face hit the floor and his tooth went through his lip. Lots of tears and blood, panicky mama but no stitches. The second incident was the worse, he was 4ish and needed his bangs trimmed. I sat him on the floor, got the scissors, combed his hair smooth and proceeded to trim. He moved I cut and instead of his hair I got his eye lid. More blood, tonnes of tears on both our parts that time, no stitches and lots of guilt on my part. He still has a scar on his eyelid.
Accidents are accidents and they are bound to happen. More big hugs!
Have a wonderful October and good luck!
Wowee.
As my mom says, don't worry, she won't remember that in college. Ha! I think every mom, dad, or caregiver has had that heart-stopping moment, and no, of course it's not intentional, but oh, how bad we feel! Once a heavy plastic elephant fell from a higher-than-her countertop onto middle child's eye and the ER visit felt a lot like an inquisition into a possible abuse case, understandably, since the poor little thing showed up with practically a black eye. But it was just one of those things... and we all do our best to keep them safe. They're called accidents for a reason! :) Wow, what a busy Sept. you had, too... Been there, for real. Don't forget to schedule you-time to create, it's so important.
oxo
T
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