R-E-C-U-P-E-R-A-T-I-O-N

…from The Birthday and from The Big Freak Out 2008…

The Birthday Weekend was so much freaking fun.  Little Henry had a blast.  I’ll of course overload you with Birthday Boy pics in just a sec…  He was showered with tons of affection and gifts and we had lots of good food, drink, etc…!  And we swam the entire weekend, rode on the boat, tubed, skiied, rode horses, chased chickens, the whole nine yards.  The weather was perfect!  And, that boy made out like a bandit, let me tell you!  He finally will have some decent toys…  That aren’t pink and hand-me-downs from Avery. 

My step-mother made this cake for him for the party at their house Sat…  Sooo stinkin’ cute!

Tate and Avery on Rocky… 

Henry demolishing that adorable cake…

His big party yesterday…

(I’ve been trying to put up a video that I shot of him eating cake right here, but I’m sick of screwing with it…  Oh well.  I’ll try again later.  User error, I’m sure.  Damn.)

Oh, and Little Henry has started taking some steps!  I might not be so excited about this next week…  However, I can’t imagine that he could walk any faster than he can crawl…  Being the gold medalist speed crawler that he is and all…  I don’t know though, maybe we should just start pushing him down until we are sure we’re ready for another walker.  (Notice the Little Henry???  I’m working on stopping calling him Baby Henry…  Everyone calls him that now and some even call him BH for short.  Um, yuck.  No.  Avery has even started calling hm that every now and then.  Gotta nip that shit with a quickness.  BH.  GA-ross.)

We did have one small blip in the fun portion of our weekend, though…  I’m calling it The Big Freak Out 2008.  Simply because I freaked.the.fuck.out.  Srsly.  Everyone here did…  We had our very first blood-gushing head injury.  Right as we had the car loaded full of food, party goods, decorations, etc… and were heading out to the lake to set up for The Party. 

I’d been waiting on it to happen…  Avery is so rough and tumble.  She’s quite the daredevil and absolutely does not look where she is stepping, putting her hands, where she may land, etc…  We’ve had many a goose-egg, but never this.  I thought I would handle it much better than I did.  Honestly, I really thought I would be semi-calm.  Um, hell to the no.  Not how it happened at all.

I heard this very loud bang and waited for a second for the screams (you other moms out there know what I’m talking about…)  When there was no immediate wailing, I let out a big sigh of relief and was going on about my business…  It was so loud that I thought to myself there is no way that could have been someone’s head…  Well, yes.  Yes, it was.  It was Avery’s head.  I think she was too stunned to cry for a few seconds, but then I heard her…

She was jumping on some ginormous stuffed hippo (that we had to remove from her room because if the coyotes aren’t getting her at night, she sees giant, scary hippopotamus shadows…) and bounced off of him and flew into a chest.  She came running and I went running for her to pick her up and kiss her booboo.  She was pretty hysterical by the time I got her and I hugged her close and asked her what happened.  As soon as I pulled my hands away from the back of her head, I saw it.  Blood.  Everywhere.  Pouring down her back.  Oh.My.God. 

So, what did I do?  I put my child on the floor, who at this point just wanted to be held because she was in pain, and ran.  RAN.  In circles.  Screaming.  Yep.  Did not hold it together at all…  I was a freaking crazy woman….  I was running around screaming “OH MY GOD!  OH MY GOD!  OH MY GOD!” and yelling the Mister’s name…  My nephew, who had been playing with her, also freaked the hell out…  He started crying and screaming just like me.  Except he was yelling stuff like  ”It’s all my fault!  It’s all my fault!  They’ll never forgive me!  OH GOD, SHE’S ONLY THREE!” while also running in circles. 

The Mister came in and almost freaked out when he saw the blood gushing down her back, but somehow managed to keep it all together…  Her dress was soaked, her hair was soaked…  I just couldn’t bare to look.  I was seriously prepared to see her little skull bashed in or her brains or something, there was that much blood. 

I tried to call my good friend, Dr. C (not to be confused with Dr. G…, who is in freaking California right now!!!  Jealous…) because she lives like three houses down, but she wasn’t home.  I was totally going to make her come look.  (She is having a baby today!  YAY, Em!  She doesn’t read this blog, but still congrats to her!)  She did leave a message about two hours later asking me to call her and that head injuries bleed like all get out…  I’m sure she was thinking she had better things to do yesterday afternoon…  Like prepare for BIRTH. 

Anyway, the Mister stepped in the House of Crazy and took over the situation.  He did wind up yelling at the top of his lungs “EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP!”  He couldn’t get out of us what had even happened.  Later, my nephew told me that I ran smack into a wall during my psychotic running and screaming…  I wouldn’t doubt it.  He was almost as upset as me…  He had been playing with her and I really think he thought that it was slightly his fault.  It totally wasn’t.  I almost went outside and threw up, and by the look of Tate’s pale, white face, I’m sure he probably could have too.  Sweet boy. 

The Mister finally got the bleeding to stop and parted her matted, red hair enough to see the wound…  It’s not even half an inch long.  Seriously.  If that.  I still think she needed a stitch, but the Mister said no.  And, Avery also did not like that idea one bit…  (Yeah, note to self, next time we have an injury of this type, not only do I need to try really hard to stay calm, I do not need to repeatedly use the terms “hospital,” “doctor,” or “stitches.”)  So, in the tub she went and on to the party, free of any visible evidence of the accident.  (Of course at this point, all the guests had already arrived and were waiting on us…)

Although, when she showed up she had been rubbing her head on the carseat and opened the cut.  It had started bleeding again and her hair was all bloody and matted once more.  But, we threw her in the lake with her friends and she forgot all about it.  Not me, though…  I could puke right now just thinking of it.  Thank god my mom was here with her Giant Bag of Tricks.  I was out of Xanax.

These are after Mister started cleaning her up…  He had gotten most all of it out of hair and off of her back, but you get the picture… 

Let’s hope that I learned my lesson, though…  Do not freak out when your children are injured…  The Mister asked me what the hell I would do if something like that happened during the day…  Well, I’m willing to bet I would turn into a raving lunatic for about three minutes, then remember The Big Freak Out 2008 and calm my ass down.  Hopefully, I’ll have some Xanax handy.  Or better yet, let’s hope it doesn’t happen again…

So, this week is going to be low key with nothing on our calender…  I’m relieved.  This house is a disaster and it will probably take me all day just to straighten it…  That’s about all I have on the agenda for the day.  Sounds fun, huh?  Apart from the cleaning bit, having nothing to do actually does sound fun at the moment. 

Oh, and, after over-indulging during The Week of Me and The Birthday Weekend, I stupidly stepped on the scale this morning.  And cried.  And cried.  Needless to say, Operation Skinny Bitch is being put back into action pronto.  So, I’ll be doing some of my least favorite things today…  Cleaning, laundry and not eating.  Aren’t you jealous?