Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Melissa!

And a happy birthday to Josh (tomorrow) as well!

Now don’t stay up too late. Especially Melissa, who’s getting old enough now that she’ll probaby start falling asleep before 9pm on her own.

Staples

These pictures and the movie clip were all taken after returning home from the hospital.

all fours
Ashlee doing the same thing she was doing when she slammed her head against the hall corner.

staple location
Her poor little scalp.

close up
Close up of the injury.

staple location
You can get an idea of where on her head the staples are located.

View the video clip. It’s an mp4 file, about 35 seconds long, 320×240, 1.6Mb. If your web browser won’t display it, right-click (or control-click) on the link and save the movie to your desktop then open it with QuickTime player.

“I’m tough”

Our little princess has a history of treating every kind of “boo-boo” as if she’s just lost a limb. Always half-crying without stop until she gets a hug and a kiss (didn’t you know Mommy and Daddy’s kisses contain special healing powers?). So in an effort to “toughen” her a up a bit, we’ve been giving her her treatment, and telling her, “That’s a big girl, you’re tough.”, and she walks away feeling better. Lately, she has decreased the amount of carrying-on when she gets an owie, as long as we acknowledge that yes indeed, she has an owie, she seems satisfied. So now just asking, “Are you OK?”, she’s been replying, “Sure, I’m tough!”, and goes on her way.

The past couple of days, she’s been squatting down and moving about on all fours and barking, acting as if she’s a puppy. Not hands and knees, hands and feet. If you’ve seen the most recent Planet of the Apes movie, it’s something similar to what the apes look like when they’re running. She moved like this yesterday through the parking lot from the church to the car. So last night, we think she was having a puppy race, her against Stella, with the living room and the hall the arena. Racing down the hall as fast as she could on all fours, we think she somehow slipped (which happens often when she’s moving like this, and not all by accident mind you), slamming the back of her head against the sharp corner at the end of the hall.

She started crying (an indication that this owie was for real) and we both rushed to her to survey the damage. Becky (who, by the way just happened to be wearing a very nice white shirt), reached her first, scooped her up, and cradled her on the couch. She cried for a little bit, but had started to calm down when Becky looked at the hand that had been holding Ashlee’s head and noticed a bit of blood on it. She moved Ashlee’s head away from her body and sure enough, a nice pool of blood had collected on the front of her shirt. I started looking for the source, and after a bit of a search (that girl has a lot of hair), I found about a 1.5cm laceration near the back of her head. It looked deep enough and long enough for sutures. We called the nurse on call at her pediatrician’s office who also confirmed we should probably have her checked out. So I bandaged her up while Becky got a snack bag ready for us. Then Ashlee and I headed for the ER (we live only about seven minutes away).

By the time we got there, Ashlee was basically her usual self. Although shy with everyone asking her questions, you really couldn’t tell anything was wrong when it was just me and her. She did look a little confused being around the medical staff as I’m sure she was wondering why she was there since she had just seen the doctor for her yearly check up only a couple weeks ago. When the check-in nurse asked her to rate her pain on the 0-10, happy face to crying face scale, she pointed to the 10-crying face. We only waited in triage for a couple of minutes before being taken to Pediatric Urgent Care.

Once in our room, the nurse came in do the primary survey, followed by the resident who took Ashlee’s history and performed a very thorough neuro and secondary survey. Ashlee was really good, even opening her mouth so the resident could see inside without even being asked. When the doctor asked her to say, “Ah”, no sound came from Ash. Two more times she tried but again no sound. Finally I said, “Ashlee, say ah.” And the tiniest “Ah” you could imagine finally emerged. The decision was made that the laceration needed to be closed, so some “numbing” cream was applied.

Then Ash gulped down the two Gogurts Beck had packed for her, and we watched a show on HBO Family with a little baby conductor in diapers, orchestrating different animated images to classical music. We were waiting for the attending physician to come in and decide sutures or staples. When Ashlee’s show was over she turned the station to the football game and said, “There you go Daddy.” I love that girl!

Only a couple of minutes later the attending arrived. He decided two staples should do the job. So the resident irrigated the wound next. I explained to Ashlee what was going to happen but I’m not sure how much she understood. I don’t know about her but this was the part I was most worried about. I’ve had sutures in the back of my head, and it’s not a fond memory. Staples have got to be worse. So Ashlee looked down, and I held her head, her cheeks cupped in my hands. The resident put the first staple in and I don’t think Ashlee felt very much if anything. I told her we were almost done, only one more to go. I think she felt the second one a bit, I could see her whole body tense up as if to say, “You didn’t tell me you were going to do that!”, but nothing came out. She shook it off and didn’t cry at all. Our TOUGH little princess.

Ashlee happily ate up a popsicle while the doctor wrote up the discharge note and got me a staple remover since we’ll be in Utah when the staples need to come out. We drove home, Ashlee back to her usual self. She had me keep changing the radio stations until we found Let’s Get It Started. We didn’t find it by the way. Not five minutes after getting home, what did we catch her doing? Picking up the puppy race where she had left off.

I’ve put up a post with a couple of pictures and little movie taken after we got home from the ER. Squeamish people need not follow. You’ll hear Ashlee give her, “I’m tough”, line after slipping near the end of the video clip. I don’t know how she’ll remember it, but the toughest time for me was watching my poor little baby get that second staple. Looking back at the whole thing after the children were in bed, Becky and I were actually surprised that this was only the first visit to the ER for Ash. We remember thinking that between ages 2 and 3, she was destined for the ER.

On a happier note.

On a happier note, this just in from the department of homeland security. Not really though but it’s pretty funny. As you should be able to tell it’s a little old. So sue me, actually don’t.

At Phoenix Sky Harbor airport today, an individual later discovered to
be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while
in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and
a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General John
Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious
al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying
weapons of math instruction.

Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,” Ashcroft said. “They desire average
solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a
search of absolute value They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’
and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns’, but we have determined they
belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with
coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used
to say, “there are 3 sides to every triangle”.

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had
wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have
given us more fingers and toes.”

More to come…

In case you haven’t heard, Ashlee and I visited the ER last night where she received two staples in the back of her head to close a small laceration. She’s fine, no residual effects. I’ll post a full account (with pictures) as soon as I have some time (late tonight or tomorrow).

Star Wars Ep. III

For those of you who wish to purchase Star Wars Episode III: Attack of the Clones and have not done so yet, I can get them tax and shipping free from the FOX employee store for $18.30 (DVD). Episodes I & II are also available for $11.60 (DVD) or $6.75 (VHS). If you can find it anywhere else cheaper, let me know. And if there is another FOX movie you were interested in acquiring, get a hold of me and I can tell you if it’s available from the store – most DVDs (not new releases) are $11.60 at the most and boxed sets from TV and movies from the FOX library are also available. I have to order by 12/15 in order to get it before Christmas. Drop me a line or give me a call if you have any questions. Only 44 days ’till Christmas!!

And who’s turn is it to send me flowers for my birthday? ,>p
JK!

Eat It AND Wear It?

So, we’ve finished reading Nick’s Roald Dahl collection, consisting of The Twits, Witches, Esio Trot, George’s Marvelous Medicine, The BFG, and Matilda. Then we read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Then we read Witches again.

Finally, I talked Nick into starting on his Judy Blume collection. The first book is Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing. I forgot how enjoyable this book is. Nick really likes it also. Two nights ago I had to read three chapters to him instead of our usual two. Anyway, we had read the chapter where Fudge won’t eat and hasn’t eaten anything for several days. The Dad finally tells Fudge to eat it or wear it. When Fudge still refuses to eat, he takes him and puts him in the bathtub, then pours his bowl of corn flakes on top of him. Then later, when the Mom, Peter, and Fudge are at a restaurant, Fudge is being his usual bad self, and in the midst of making a mess with his meal, he says wear it, then pours his food all over himself.

Pretty funny stuff. So funny in fact that last night, while feeding the kids their “bedtime” snack, Nick had finished his bowl of cereal, drank all his milk, then said,

“Dad, eat it or wear it!”

I looked up from the front room just in time to see Nick pouring his cereal bowl over his head. Unfortunately, there was still a tiny bit of milk in the bottom of the bowl and I saw it dripping onto Nick’s head. Nick was all smiles as he turned around. I must admit it was pretty funny. Good thing it was only a couple of drops and not a whole bowl full of milk. Thanks Fudge.