The Lively Kitchen

I can cross ‘first serious playground injury’ off the baby book.

We went to a rather innocent looking park this week and, as I was looking down at my book, I heard The Cry. The one that any mom knows – the one that means ‘I am honestly really hurt.’ I run over to see my little guy sitting at the base of a small (maybe 3 foot) climbing wall holding his head. I initially calmed down, as I didn’t see any broken bones or blood. I picked him up and put my hand on the back of his head to help him calm down. As I pulled away my hand I saw the blood. The blood covering my hand, blood coming from the back of his head. He saw my bloody hand and his cries became even more frantic and he started thrashing around, causing more blood to drip down the back of his head.

I had nothing with me except my phone, keys and book, so I took of his shirt to try to stop the blood. He was still frantic and didn’t want me touching his head. It was awful.

He finally calmed down a bit and we walked to the car, as I wanted to get him away from the playground. An angel mom came over with a clean dish towel she keeps in her car for emergencies (why, oh why hadn’t I thought of that?) and gave me some ice from her water cup. Another mom came over, announced she was a nurse and tried her best to check out his head. Unfortunately, upon hearing the word ‘nurse,’ my little guy immediately conjured up his doctor visit from 2 weeks ago where the nurse gave him 4 shots. Ugh.

He started screaming ‘no, not a nurse, don’t give me any shots.’ Despite her best efforts, he wouldn’t let her near his head. She recommended we get to urgent care, so off we went. I almost ran off the road trying to watch him in the backseat and check that he wasn’t falling asleep, fearing a concussion.

Urgent Care got us in quickly and I got to further raise both of our blood pressures as I restrained him with all my might (that kid is strong!) as the nurse cleaned the wound and then the doctor stapled the wound together. It was awful.

After getting to choose his bandage color (red – his favorite) and picking a toy from the treasure box, he was fine and even a bit proud of his ‘ouch.’ I was queasy from the whole experience.

He’s healed nicely and proudly shows anyone he can find his staples in his head, recounting the story and telling of all the ‘bwood.’

I put a clean towel and bottle of water in my trunk that night. While drinking a glass of wine.

Motherhood is never dull.

That night I happened to glance at the lid of the tea I was drinking at the park.  I almost spit up my wine while laughing:

True that.

On Friday we loaded half our house into the car,

and drove from San Antonio to the Frio River in Concan, TX.

We even got to drive over the river,

which delighted the kids (and me).

At dusk fireflies showed up and very graciously let the kids catch them.

It was kinda magical.

The kids were sent to procure wood for the fire

and no one got hurt.  Also kinda magical.

We ended the night with some smores and campfire conversation.

(the kids had only smores, the parents had wine + smores)

Saturday we woke to a perfect weather day.

The girl caught a grasshopper,

some butterflies,

a tadpole,

and a fish (really her dad caught it, and we released him back to the river).

There was nature exploring,

and fishing.

There was (cold, cold) swimming,

there was climbing.

The little guy bonded with some friend’s sweet pup.

We had more smores. And more wine.

We laughed.  A lot.

Sunday morning came too soon and after some final nature exploring, we headed back to real life.

It was a wonderful weekend and I’m still smiling in my heart about it today. And doing 17 loads of laundry (while picking rocks out of pockets). And putting away the half the house that was packed up.

Totally worth it.

Books my kids are loving:

Chalk by Bill Thomson – amazing, amazing hand drawn illustrations. There are no words in the book, just a very clever story in pictures.

The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man (with Moskowitz the Awesome Dog) by Michael Chabon. Love this story! I’ve read it at least 18 times to my boy. And I think if we get a dog, we’ll seriously consider naming it Moskowitz.

Lisa Loeb’s Silly Sing-Along book and CD – I have to refrain from busting out into Stay, but we’ve listened to this CD all week on repeat. Very cute and catchy and not annoying like many kid’s CDs. There is a song called Fried Ham that we’ve been singing non-stop, although I did cheer when, after singing it a few times, my boy asked “mom, what’s bologna?”

I read Divergent this week. It didn’t captivate me like Hunger Games and took me way longer to get into, but it was a good read and I stayed up too late to finish it. Looking forward to the next one.

Some good reads on the worldwide web:

Is An Egg For Breakfast Worth This? (NY Times) – we do eat eggs, but I try to make sure they all come from the Farmer’s Markets or other local sources. Even if you don’t care about the chicken’s welfare, you have got to think that the eggs produced by chickens who are surrounded by ammonia and decaying carcasses can not be healthy. Cheap eggs aren’t good. Good eggs aren’t cheap. I would love to raise our own chickens, but our neighborhood association prohibits it.

In The Wake Of Drought: What Remains (Beth Moore) – Preach it Beth!

Random Hula Hoop Picture:

And a gem from my Daughter’s take-home folder this morning:

(my elephant can be weird and my elephant can play dead) – not sure what to make of that

Any books you recommend for me or my kids????