Egg dying

I'm happy to report we have had no incidents of bleeding or reporting to the ER in the last couple of days. Paige has been recovering well even with the staples in her head. She had lots of fun sitting in the special chair at school and telling her classmates all about the event, sharing her two poems and showing her hospital bunny off.

Meanwhile, Patrick has been gone at a conference in Boston. We girls have been enjoying some quality time together: movies, Mexican food, planting some new flowers and lots of play time with friends. Anna caught a case of the sniffles and since church was outside this morning with chilly temps and rain in the forecast, I kept her home. She probably would have been just fine, but we dyed eggs and listened to worship music instead. It was a precious time together, just the three of us!

We also met in our Bible study group I formed with Anna and a few of her friends from church. It has been so sweet and encouraging. We've been reading through Matthew, learning about the Messiah and praying for each other. I even got all the girls to pray out loud this morning which is no small feat! My heart is really about teaching these girls how to read God's Word. We don't need any fancy commentaries...just the Holy Spirit and the good Book in front of us. Despite the fact that we are reading familiar stories, we've uncovered new truths, learned about cross references, discovered historical facts that helped expand our understanding, applied the truth to our lives and even pondered some difficult questions. It's been such a sweet blessing and I'm enjoying this time with my oldest and some other young ladies.

Staples

Well, we can add another medical treatment to our list of experiences. Paige and I made an outing to our local Urgent Care and then emergency room to take care of a one inch gash in the back of her head. It's a wonder DSS is not on our case yet after two broken arms, skin glue and now staples.

Let me start from the beginning...the girls and I got home from school and they began to wrestle, one of their favorite activities. Usually it ends up with somebody hurt and crying, but I have stopped policing this because they know that's what happens and they have to live with the consequences of it. In this particular case, I was actually in the middle of saying, "stop because somebody is going to get...." when Paige fell backward into our tree stump side table. I knew as soon as she hit it there was a possibility of her cutting open her head. Sure enough she reached back and then revealed her hand with blood on it.

So fortunately, I know heads bleed a lot, but the girls were freaking out. I positioned her in the bathroom where both of them couldn't see the blood stained shirt or bloody hair and we got the bleeding under control fairly quickly. Because she hadn't passed out felt nauseous or dizzy and was very communicative, I knew cognitively she was fine.

Patrick got a nice, calm phone call from me telling him he needed to come home and then when he arrived, I was careful not to show him anything either. My people don't do injury well and this is not my first rodeo. He was sweet to offer and take her to Urgent Care, but I felt he might deal better with the guilty feeling Anna we were leaving behind.

When Paige and I got to the Urgent Care the old school doctor we saw with the chin incident was there and didn't exactly evoke confidence from me. When I asked him how he was with staples, his answer was: not that good. What?! The PA wouldn't do it either and they explained they didn't have any anesthesia. I mean I don't need anesthesia, but you seriously don't have numbing cream? The whole thing just baffled me and I opted to go to the ER instead.

The ER was great...no wait in the waiting room, triage was quick, and the nurses actually talked to us about what they were going to do before poking around. Paige and I watched Little House on the Prairie while we let the numbing cream set in and then they gave her two staples. Of course, she was none too happy with that, but then they presented her with a stuffed bunny and her feelings changed quickly. I picked her up a milkshake on the way home and we called it a night.

Anna was so sweet to set up a rest nest and get her bath ready. Fortunately I was able to wash most of the blood out the ends of her hair and it's pretty well covered for school today. She wrote two poems about her experience since her class is studying poetry right now. I mean let's just make this educational while we are at it. When I was texting her teacher from the ER to let her know about school the next day, her sweet teacher offered to come over and sit with us. :)

So there you have it. I'm just shaking my head. Franken-Paige gets the staples out in a week. And honestly now that I've seen the whole process, I'm pretty sure I could have put some staples in myself at home. I mean if I can repair a dryer, I can repair my kid's scalp, right?!

St. Patty's Day

We has a fun, low key weekend. On Friday, Ann and I had the girls from her Bible study group over for pizza and a movie. Did I tell you I started a small group with Anna and her friends? Our church is launching what we call TAP groups, which are essentially small group Bible studies that focus on truth, accessibility and prayer. My desire is to teach these young ladies how to open the Bible, hear from the Holy Spirit and learn about God through their own discoveries. We've started in Matthew and I've been so encouraged by their excitement and willingness to share so far.

I realized on Friday night we're in a new phase with the girls and I am SO enjoying it. I looked at Patrick and said, we've got kids that want to come over and hang out at our house together! They were silly, ate too much candy and laughed about the goofiest things. I love seeing Anna interact with her friends and get a glimpse of her personality through their eyes. She's a fun and sassy kid, if you didn't already know that!

As for Paige, we have another tooth about to come out. She's been faithfully wiggling it at night and I think we'll see a change to her smile soon. Patrick also helped her do her March Madness Women's bracket. She needed to know what the team mascots were so she could choose the best animal. Good thing for her the huskies are a cute animal!

Ok Saturday...fortunately nobody in this house got pinched for not wearing green. The girls were all over that. We celebrated St. Patty's Day with some green waffles for breakfast, a viewing of The Wrinkle in Time (which was great!) and some yummy shepherd's pie. Anna and I also baked a delicious vanilla cake with fresh cherries and pistachio buttercream frosting. It was for our Sunday gathering with our church. She's getting to be quite the baker.

Finally, the girls have been taking swim lessons at the Y twice a week and are enjoying all their time in the pool. I was disappointed when Paige's acting class for the spring was cancelled due to a lack of participants, but she rebounded nicely and loves getting in the pool. So as you can see, we're trucking along.

Banquet time

OK this is the last post about basketball for a while. We had a chance to attend the end of the season banquet for the JCC where Anna plays. It was a fun time to get together, eat pizza and receive trophies. This year I didn't mind that they received trophies because they were the actual champions of their age division. Normally, the participation trophies get to me...I digress.

Anna had a sweet time sitting with Caroline and her other basketball buddies. They were announced at the very end as the championship team. The coach recounted Anna's sour patch kid moment which made everybody laugh and then they all got to take pictures with the trophy.

It was a fun time overall and I think Anna will play some basketball again. If anything, it will be great cross training for running!