I've heard people say that being a stay at home mom is monotonous, boring, you name it, it isn't exciting. Those people have never lived at my house! Today the girls went out to the backyard & Bethany, who is known for scaling walls in our house, decided to climb higher than she ever has. Natalie tapped on the window (I can see the tree from my desk) and pointed. I had to smile as I was the child many years ago whose brother ran inside saying, "Mom! Lori is way up in that big tree!" Our trees in Georgia were skyscrapers compared to our trees in the shrubland area of Texas. I had to stop smiling when I heard footsteps above me & Natalie ran in to tell me, "Bethany is on the roof!" Yeah. Really. I went out to see her standing there, happy as a lark. "This is so cool! You can see the whole neighborhood from here." And you're about to see your mother go into cardiac arrest, young lady. Natalie & I scooted the playhouse (which is now more like a clubhouse, and a cool thing to stand on top of) close to the roof, and helped her get down that way.
But, wait! There's more! Later they went back outside. I heard Bethany start screaming, so I ran out. She was on the ground crying. I was sure she'd broken a bone. I picked her up and carried her into the house (good thing she's still so light). Once inside, I realized it wasn't a bone at all. She was holding her, ahem, potty area, and screaming that it hurt. We got her clothes off and discovered she was bleeding. I let her lay on a towel on my bed & got a warm rag. She finally was able to get up & move around, and seemed to be doing much better.
When I finally got her to explain what happened, it seems she thought it would be safer to have Natalie hand her the swing up in the tree and she could swing out of the tree, rather than climb down. I thought it was the rope/disk swing. No, she had the regular sitting down kind of swing. Somehow she grabbed hold of the CHAIN, not the seat, then lost her tight grip and slipped down, and she hit the bottom of the chain, where it attaches to the swing. Of course. That's what everyone does.
Meanwhile, Natalie was invited over to her friend's house, so she left right after this excitement. Bethany later went down the street to her friend's house to play. She came back a little after 6 to use the bathroom. The crying started all over again, along with some bleeding. This time I called the nurse hotline. The nurse went through all the questions. She said her guidelines for that kind of injury (who knew they had guidelines for this!) said she needed to be seen in the ER in case of "uretheral trauma." There's a new vocabulary word for the day.
I called Phil's cell phone, and he was almost home, so we waited. By the time we got to the ER, she was not hurting at all. We didn't have to wait terribly long to be seen. The doctor said there was a small cut, but it did not need stitches and should heal quickly. She does, however, have bruising & swelling. Neosporin and an ice pack, plus ibuprofen if needed, was all he prescribed. I'm not sure if we'd met her deductible yet, but I can almost guarantee after tonight we have!
She has been told, "Do not climb up that high in the tree. Do not go onto the roof. Do not jump out of the tree on your swing. Do not jump out of the tree. Come back DOWN the tree the same way you went up. Or just don't climb it anymore." See the redheaded girl in these pictures? See all 47.5 pounds of her? At the TOP of the door? At the TOP of the wall? Do you really think we'll keep her from climbing?
I'd say we had a good science lesson today. This is the way gravity works, dear. This is the way medicine works, darling. This is what happens to the body when you try to jump off the tree using the chain on the swing. Good thing we'd already done math and language arts for the day!
And, so, you see, why I say being a stay at home and visit the emergency room once every couple of years mom is never boring. It could, however, drive me to insanity, if I weren't already there.
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