Thursday Adventures.

We are back home from visiting our relatives in Toronto for Easter. Julia still insists that she went to Ukraine and tells this to everyone in her school. David keeps drawing churches and asking Seth to take him there.

This week we tried to get back to our regular schedule. Julia went back to school and David was off since it's a spring break in his school. I realized it was a good opportunity to spend some quality time with him. So putting cleaning and cooking aside, we played sports in our backyard until it was time to pick up Julia.

Then Thursday rolled in. I decided to take him to a park in a nearby town which we have been visiting for years. It has a lot of old equipments like a merry-go-round, metal see-saw, sand box among others. Not even 5 minutes us being there as I noticed a police car parking next to mine and a cop writing me a ticket. Long story short, since I'm not a resident I wasn't allowed to park there until 10 am and it was only 9:30 am. That was one pricey outing.

Not to let the morning incident spoil the rest of the day, I decided to have a picnic with the kids in the woods. We picked up Julia and went on a hike looking for a nice picnic spot. We had such a wonderful time that I promised myself to bring them there at least couple times a week once David is done with his school and eats lunch with us. It was peaceful, quiet and enjoyable which is never the case around our dining table at home.

I wish that was enough excitement for one day. In the afternoon the kids asked me to take them bike riding in the Middle school a block away from us. They rode their bikes there, but 20 minutes later got bored and insisted on riding to a local playground about 10 minutes away. Sure, why not. David is pretty good on his bike and even though he rides too fast for Julia or me to keep up with him, he'll always wait for me at a cross walk. The kids like riding in the playground although I don't think it's the safest as there are a lot of smaller kids playing and considering David rides like a maniac on his bike, it's just the matter of time when he hits someone. I kept my eyes on the kids the whole time until I lost Julia. I ran all over the park looking for her when I noticed someone helping David up. His lips were covered in blood, he was crying pointing to his scratched up knee, elbow and fingers. Thankfully, he couldn't see his face because knowing how dramatic he is, he would have fainted. I rushed him to the police office located off the playground when who decided to show up? Julia! I asked her where she was and she said she got lost and a grown up was feeding her popcorn. I was thankful she was alive, so I wasn't paying too much attention to her until the cop who was wiping blood off David's face (it was coming from the inside of his nose), elbow and knees started applying bandages on his wounds. Then Julia went into a full meltdown mood crying that she needs a bandage too for a 5 day old scratch on her toe. At the end, the police officer gave us a ride home as David insisted he couldn't walk and while the cop was telling me all about his brand new baby, I was contemplating of asking him to do something about the ticket I received earlier that day. I decided not to push my luck and let it go.

After an hour of laying on a couch moaning and holding an ice pack over his nose that tripled in size, David couldn't wait to get outside and play.

Seth rushed home and took him to the emergency room to make sure his nose wasn't broken. Unfortunately, because it was swollen so much, they couldn't do much there. So, I'm bringing him to a specialist next week.

The good thing is, David was back on his bike the next day cruising all over the town, falling again, dusting himself off and getting right back on a bike. I have a feeling he won't be a stranger to the emergency rooms.

"Break a Leg" .

The other night as I was quietly eating my dinner I heard Julia saying "Mommy, I want to go pee-pee on a potty". I jumped out of my seat and ran towards her. Well, at least it was my intention. I did manage to get up, but I didn't run too far as my foot got caught in a leg of our dining table. I heard a cracking sound that came out of my toe and I screamed. David ran downstairs from the bathroom and asked me if I was okay. Seth attended to Julia who did nothing on a potty. The pain I felt in my toe indicated that I broke a bone. I placed an ice pack on my right foot and kept it off the floor.

Next morning, I went to the emergency room where a doctor confirmed that my toe was broken, but all she could do is to tape it and write a prescription for vicotin. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, the doctor called a nurse asking her to bring me a special shoe medium size. I whispered to her that it might be too small. The nurse came with women's sizes medium and large shoes. Neither one fit me, so she had to go back and get me a man's shoe. To make me feel better, she insisted that my feet don't look that big. As I was being discharged I was told to stay off my feet, neither cook nor clean. That ain't happening of course.

I would never think that breaking one toe could be so painful and it could affect an entire foot.

For now, the kids won't be going to any parks on the weekdays and taking David to school will take me forever, but everything considered I am lucky it is just a toe.

Chair 1, Julia 0

A split second is all it takes for a child to fall and hit the back their head on a solid object. David did it when he was 1½, and now it was Julia's turn. The only difference is while David hit a flat wall (and was okay within a minute of his fall,) Julia's head landed on the corner of a chair, puncturing her head and producing a deep gash. There wasn't too much blood as far as head injuries can go, but it looked deep enough to have it looked at.

I drove Julia to the emergency room at Holy Name Hospital. After getting checked in and having the nurse check Julia out, we got to see the on-call doctor. He felt that although the wound wasn't long, it was a bit deep. He recommended giving her a staple (rather than stitches) to keep the wound closed and to minimize the risk of infection.

After giving her a topical anesthetic (and keeping it in place with a bandage),

...a single staple was put into her head.

Note: Second staple was used to show relative size.

Anyway, the doctor said that the anesthetic would reduce the pain to a small pinch, but her crying told another story.

Incidently:

• The time between her fall and entering the emergency room was about ten minutes.
• It took fifteen minutes combined to see the nurse, get the local anesthetic, put in the staple, review the treatment paperwork and pay the co-pay.
• The other 3½ hours were simply waiting to be treated. (When we walked in, there were only two kids in the emergency room in front of us.)

Well, we're at least lucky that it wasn't truly serious this time, and Julia seemed to be in good spirits the rest of the day -- regardless of her ordeal. Still, it's really scary how a split second can be the difference between our kids happily playing and us needing to take them to the hospital.