The girls went to the Electric Lights parade downtown tonight with their father (ignore my jealousy that he took them, not me).  They just called me more excited them I've heard them in a long time.  They got to see Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto.  But that pales compared to  who they saw next.  They were so excited they could hardly spit it out.  They got to see the Cheetah Girls!  And apparently, out of all the millions of kids out there, Adrian waved directly at the girls and blew them  a kiss . 

 

Somehow, I think I'm probably lucky I got to stay home.

 

 

 

It really helps to have experience in these things.

 

Shannon, my incredibly smart daughter, did an incredibly stupid thing.  She thought she it would be fun to run between the swings at the playground as her sister and friend were swinging.  The first few times went well, but then, of course, she got cocky and careless.  And the friend slammed right into her, sending her airborne.  But it’s OK, she broke her fall with her face.  In the gravel.  So Emma comes running home, crying hysterically that Shannon’s face is bleeding really bad.  So I start running over to the park (who knew I could run so far?) and meet her and her friend about half way.  I walk her home while Emma and their friend go back to get the bikes.  Once home, I get her cleaned up, pick the gravel out (ick) and spray her with antiseptic, and give her some ice.  Her poor friend is so upset, even though I keep trying to reassure her there is absolutely no way this could be her fault (while giving Shannon the mom evil eye).

 

So she looks just beautiful.  It’s too bad she didn’t do it before Halloween, we could have saved money on a costume.

 

Then, yesterday, I was picking the girls up from daycare, and you know how sometimes things happen and you know it’s going to happen, but there’s no way to stop it in time?  One of those moments.  This little girl A, who’s one of Emma’s friends was running and collided with someone else during a game of something.  She fell to the ground.  No big deal, except there was a really large 5^th grader right behind her who then tripped over her.  And he really tried to not land on her, which resulted in him stumbling across her and stepping on her hand.  A gets up screaming and holding her hand, and I looked at her and wondered why she was holding her hand at such an odd angle.  And all the supervisors are just standing around, looking at her.  Then I realize that she isn’t holding her hand at a weird angle, her ring finger, at the knuckle, is bent straight up.  I almost threw up.  I grabbed her, tried to hide her  hand from her, and quickly walked into the building, asking one of the supervisors to get her some ice.

 

I look at her hand and the finger obviously is dislocated and really hurting her, so I take a deep breath, say “A, do me a favor.  Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”  She does and I push down on her finger really lightly to see if it will move.  And pop, it goes right back into place.  And I nearly threw up again.  But her pain subsided quite a bit with that.

 

At this point one of the supervisors comes up and asks if she should call an ambulance.  And I suggest she call her parents instead.  Duh.  I take her into the kitchen, get two ice packs from the other supervisor, sit her down and put them on her hand on the counter so it’s above her heart.  .  I ask her if she would like me to stay and talk with her until her mom gets there and she says yes.  So we talk about the Jonas brothers, her Dad’s tattoo parlor (don’t ask) and Halloween, trying to distract her.  And meanwhile, the supervisors are milling about, doing absolutely nothing.

 

Her mom arrives about ½ hour later and we talk and then they go off to the hospital.  The supervisor comes over and thanks me for helping and all I can think of is, “You’re supposed to be in charge of caring for my kids.  I’m not feeling too safe right now.”