I have learned...

...that you can tell you are doing God's work if the resistance to it is so strong it makes you start wishing you had never started.

How was your weekend?

Mine was a little hectic. Voici la deuxieme partie:

Friday: Amy is feeling slightly better, but just trying to rest because of the big Confirmation retreat at the parish the next day. But Amy and helpful secretary have to go to the Warehouse Store to buy chips and drinks for the retreat and Amy still has to administer eyedrops during lunchtimes at school. This is the last day and the boys are highly cooperative.

Scott takes Primo to the Cub Scout skate that evening at a county park in town. After they are there for an hour and a half (with me dozing on the couch while the young ones watch TMBG, my friend M. (a nurse whose son-Primo's BFF-and husband are at the rink) calls my cell. "Amy, don't be alarmed," she says (don't you love it when the conversation starts that way?), "but Scott has fallen at the ice rink and it appears to be serious. I think you should get over there." Next the house phone starts ringing. It's the rink. "Your husband fell on the ice and he's shaking...." puts Primo on the phone, he's crying, scared. I try to my best to reassure him as I try to keep myself together: "Daddy's going to be OK. You stay there with Den Leader and I'll be there in 5 minutes." M. will meet me at the rink. I get shoes on the little ones, get out the door to put them in the car and think to take them to the neighbors across the street. A., the husband, offers to drive with me but I want to go alone. God drives my car to the park and the ambulance is still there which I take as a good sign since it took me 15 minutes to get there.

Scott is in the ambulance, slurring, arguing with the EMTs to let him get up.

"Hey you," I say through tears.
"Hi," says Scott, looking at me like I'm the first thing he's focused on in a while.
"How are you?"
(still slurring) "I'm fine. I'm telling them to let me up. They won't. I keep telling them I'm fine."
"We're just trying to help you," says one EMT.
"You fell and hit your head real hard," I say.
(slurring, astonished) "Really?"
"Yeah, you really whacked your head. I need you to do what they tell you to do."
(Slurring) "But I feel fine. I want to get up."
(choking up since I am now noticing that Scott's hands are tied with zip ties) "For once in your life, will you just do what I tell you and listen to these guys?"
(slurring, resigned) "Okay."
"I'm going to find Billy. I'll be right back."

I am now feeling MUCH better. I know he's going to be fine.

A policeman pulls me aside and asks me to help him fill out a police report. I ask someone to get Billy from the rink for me. First thing the cop says is, "Your husband is really strong." Apparently, when he came out of his 3 minute siezure, he was very disoriented and tried to stand up. Since they didn't know the extent of his injuries, they wanted him to stay still. It took 6 people to hold him down and what the ambulance got there they had to handcuff him to the stretcher since they didn't have any other restraints for him.

In hindsight, I find this to be very amusing. It's like he's the Hulk. He cannot be contained!

I finally get to see Primo, he's shaken up, but seems to be OK. They let him see Scott on the ambulance. The EMTs have freed his hands and sat him up on the stretcher. He was able to wave to our friends standing outside of the ambulance. He's smiling and looks totally normal.

Long story short, he goes to the local trauma center where they do a CAT scan that night. He has no brain injuries, no fractures; only a mild concussion, a bump, and a scrape on his head and we are home within 4 hours of the fall. Scott mourns the loss of the coat and brand new sweatshirt he wore that night and they had to cut him out of. Primo got his first sleepover at a friends' house and he is fine with everything that happened. He was scared then, but he's not worried about daddy anymore. He felt better when he got to sleep at M.'s house. My in-laws got the young ones from my neighbors and they got a sleepover out of the deal, too.

Saturday: We pick up Primo and head over to the in-laws where everyone but me will stay since we have our big Confirmation retreat at the church that day. I go to work, but mt heart is not there. I call a few times during the day and Scott rests and is fine. By Saturday night (24 hours later) he feels great.

Sunday: He is still a little tired and very sore from fighting, but Scott feels normal otherwise.

Monday: He goes to work.

I just want to take this time to say thank you to the Den Leaders who were so great to Primo and the other boys. They went with me to the ER and stayed until Scott was discharged. They were great to our family and I am so grateful.

My friends and neighbors were also wonderful to us during this time. I will be forever grateful that the first person I heard from that night was M.

I leave you with this: You never know what a day is going to bring. My husband was one weird fall from being dead, a vegetable, or a quadrapelegic. Make sure the people you love know you love them. Never part with an unkind word or a hard heart. Always kiss him goodbye.

And make sure your kids wear a helmet when they go ice skating. Primo was. And if he had been the one who fell, he probably would have been fine, too. If he hadn't been, well, it wouldn't be a happy ending.

So, how was your week?

Let's flash back to last Thursday: Amy begins to feel slightly under the weather.
Friday: Amy feels really crappy, but since she is not a lady who lunches, continues to do what most moms do and push through, catching as much rest as she can so she is well enough to go out with her husband on their first Valentine's day date on actual Valentine's day in whenever long (probably the history of their relationship. I can share my thoughts on Valentine's Day in another post).
Saturday: Amy feels better; Scott and Amy pack up the kids and ship them to the in-laws (yes the ones recovering from eye surgery and rotator cuff surgery, why do you ask?) and they go to the big night out at the college's alumni event for Valentine's day in which: Amy tries caviar and sushi (meh and YUM!), drinks 2 glasses of champagne, requests no shrimp on her salad and gets yummy fresh mozzarella instead, has the most wonderful beef tenderloin that has ever crossed her lips, then to top it off has the most wonderful chocolate and fresh berry dessert accompanied by the single worst cup of coffee she has ever tasted in her entire life. Amy, have you met Weight Watchers? Then we go back to the in-laws for a family sleepover (you didn't think we were going to make the in-laws deal with our kids first thing in the morning, did you?), find the chocolate my MIL left on our pillows (she is as great as she sounds) and sleep on the pull-out couch with limited success.
Sunday: Wake up feeling not unlike road kill, notice Bubba's eye is a little red and appears to have extra eye boogers. Decide to wait and see if we call the friends whose house we were going to for dinner and cancel. Go to Mass. Convince ourselves it's not pink eye and head to the H. Family's home and have a wonderful wonderful time. Stay way too late. Thank God it's a holiday the next morning. Kids fall asleep in the 4 mile drive home. Put them to bed. Go to bed convinced our friends will never talk to us again after their 3 kids get pink eye from the overstays their welcome and brings us pink eye family (aka Giglios) .
Monday: Amy wakes up feeling mostly good, very tired. President's day. Bub's eye is redder and boogery-er. Primo's eye is reddish. Go to Doctor. Diagnosis: pink eye. Scott gets email that a friend is up from DC. Makes plans for disease-ridden family to meet the nice, training-for-a-marathon single guy for some coffee (would you like room for pink eye?). Play at park on the way home (we like to share), fight with kids to take eye drops. Put them to bed after supper.
Tuesday: Amy wakes up feeling ok, not great, but everyone stays home because, hey, we're contagious and can't go to school! We play Homeschool for the morning and work on the packet of 12 papers that Primo hasn't finished at school since the end of January. Primo shuts down at lunchtime. we stop at 8 papers. Excellent progress. More eyedrop wrestling. Curly Sue vomits randomly right before dinner. Is fine by bedtime.
Wednesday: Amy feels like S*&%. Stays home from work, but has to go to boys' schools to administer eyedrops at lunchtime. Amy and Scott make progress on Lego Indiana Jones And the Temple of Doom on Wii.
Thursday: Amy feels like S*&% warmed over and smeared on the bottom of some guy's shoe. Scott stays home later to run boys to school. Downside: Scott will be getting home later. Amy stays home from work again. Does lunchtime eyedrops again. Does homework again. Remembers late that Primo has to get Varicella vaccine that night. Scott comes home earlier to get Primo to take him to doctor. Decide kids can go another night without a bath. Put them to bed. Scott convinces Amy (OK, didn't take much convincing) to defeat Lego Indiana Jones And the Temple of Doom on Wii. There is much rejoicing. Amy falls alseep before her head hits the pillow.

That's enough fun for now. And I didn't even get to the REAL fun yet. More tomorrow.

A bone to pick

This time with "Time for Kids" magazine. This gets distributed in schools across America, including Primo's Catholic school.

Now, I understand that the inauguration of our country's first not-all-white president is a big deal. However, "Time for Kids" seems to be totally in love with Obama. We had the gushy, mushy inauguration edition where we found out everything an 8 year old would want to know about inauguration day except what the president ate for breakfast that morning (Do demi-gods even need to eat?). We found out that his inauguration day was the third coldest ever at 27 degrees (Ronald Reagan's second inauguration was the coldest at 7 degrees).

This week, in what ostensibly would be the Abraham Lincoln edition (he is featured prominently on the cover, like his whole face takes up the front of it), here reads the final paragraph: "Lincoln's Ideas Live On: On January 20, President Barack Obama called on Americans 'to carry forward...the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free.' Lincoln would have joined his call."

whaaaa?????

Silly me. I thought the cover story was about Abe Lincoln. Why does it have to go back to Barack? When I brought this up to my husband last night, Scott said, "I wonder how Lincoln would feel about the killing of unborn babies?"

I'm not ready to call this brainwashing or inculturation...yet, but don't you think that final paragraph is just weird?

Everyone knows it's Windy....

Did you ever hear that song? It's kind of stupid and they used to play it on the oldies station here in NY. It's about a girl named Windy who has "stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies." Like I said, stupid.

Anyway, it's really windy here in North Jersey today. It started early this morning and I heard on the radio this morning that we are supposed to get 65 mph gusts this afternoon.

Which leads me to this final question: when it's super windy at your house, does the water in your toilet move, or does that just happen at my place?

Whensday

When

In February there are days,
Blue, and nearly warm,
When horses switch their tails and ducks
Go quacking through the farm.

When all the world turns round to feel
The sun upon it's back-
When winter lifts a little bit
And spring peeks through the crack!

~~Dorothy Aldis

Today, February 11, it is 67 degrees outside and I have all the windows open. This Wednesday is a "when" day.

Poem shamelessly lifted from Miz Booshay's Quiet Life.

Random randomness

So, it's been a while since I posted with any regularity. I have been busy, but I think the main problem is that facebook ate my posting time. I am spending a lot of time on facecrack and posting things there that I would ordinarily post here. I'm sorry for having neglected my blog, and you three wonderful readers.


It would appear that my husband and I are going out on Valentine's Day for the first time in as long as I can remember, which, I will readily admit, is not that far back.


My father-in-law is doing really great. If you recall, his ocular melanoma came back in his remaining eye. He underwent raditation treatment in early December and is feeling much better now.

In other news, 2 days after Christmas, my mother-in-law fell in the kitchen and did a number on her rotator cuff, which required surgery 2 weeks ago. She's apparently got a surgeon with the bedside manner of a cactus, but the shoulder is doing well. She starts PT today.

Scott's B-day is Sunday, exactly 3 weeks after our eldest son's. He'll be 33. It's also Scout Sunday (Pancake Breakfast-not really that yum) the day that Primo receives his Light of Christ medal at the Cathedral in Newark. Fun times! We're going to see what else we can pack into that day because there just doesn't seem to be enough going on.

I have been reading David McCullough's book 1776, which is about the first year of the American Revolution. We all know how that turned out. But what I find amazing is that when he starts to talk about parts where he starts to talk about the battles (and there were many, especially at the beginning of the War for Independence) where things did not go well , I have to put the book down because I do not want to read about the bad parts. McCullough has made history really come alive (so cliche, but so true) that I don't want to read about militiamen getting killed and Washington's plans failing. I fell invested in these men. Also enlightening for me was reading about how savage the war really was. In particular, I'm thinking about reading about the Battle of Brooklyn. The Continental Army had been taken by complete surprise over the British/Hessian attack and some Americans surrendered with their arms raised only to be bayoneted and beheaded by the redcoats and the Hessians. In high school, we didn't read about that or the contempt that the Bristish soldiers had for the Americans. This is a real education for me.

Another excellent book that McCullough wrote and I bought for myself after my birthday in November was John Adams (maybe you saw the Showtime movie that is based on the book with Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti?). I have to admit that after reading this book I have new respect for our second president and I have been drawing some parallels between Mr. A. (as his wife Abigail referred to him) and George W. Bush. I'll have to save that for another time.

I still continue to be amazed by people.

I want to say this about our president's inauguration. I had to go to the post office in the middle of the city that morning. Curly Sue and I were walking and 3 people said unsolicited Good Mornings to me that day. These were women who were truly happy. These were women who prior to election day in November would probably not have spoken to me at all. There was something in the air that morning. It was positive. It may have been hope.

My three readers know I am no big fan of Mr. O. And heck, I wasn't a big fan of Mr. B. (I have a brother on active duty in the US Navy who has been to the Persian Gulf 3 times). But there was something different in the air that day. I pray for him and hope that he does right by our country.

I want to say more about the March for Life later, but I do want to say this: I think that many people see the March as a Catholic event since the church has been front and center about the evil of abortion for so long. And many attendees were Catholic. But I just wish I had gotten a photo of the two Atheist Anarchists for Life we saw at Union Station ("When mothers are allowed to be tyrants, each child is a revolution.").

You can sign the petition here.

Cool pic

Scott took it, I doctored it up using some Photoshop tips from The Pioneer Woman, I posted it to her Flickr group and......

She liked it so much that she put it on her Photography page!!!

I'm glad she liked it and I'm glad that one of Scott's pics is getting such a wide audience! That's our Bub, last summer age 4.

This is one of Primo that I posted also:
I love the way this one turned out. Also last summer, Primo age 7.