Family: Life. . . Always an Adventure

I can definitely say that my life right now has be absolutely crazy. School has started and I get to be the guinea pig for a new math class. I am working as a half time teacher, teaching math to first, second, and third grade students. It has been a wonderful learning experience.

I've decided that sometimes kids do or say the funniest things that just need to be shared. So periodically I will be posting some of those fun moments in life. I will start by sharing one of those true "Hunter moments." My brother and his wife were blessing their new baby over the Labor Day weekend. They live in Boise and it was going to be a long drive for 3 young kids. Luckily, my parents and grandparents both took one of my girls because we did not know if we were going to be able to leave Saturday night or early Sunday morning. This left us with only Hunter. Let me explain something about Hunter... he loves to sing. He has the wonderful ability to learn songs quickly too. Anyways, while driving, Hunter starts singing this song he learned on "The Bee movie" (I think that is what it is called). He starts singing "Sugar, sugar...my candy girl. Honey, honey... my candy girl. Sucker, sucker...my candy sucker." Then he proceeds to laugh at himself for the new words he had created. I sure love this kid!!

Well, I have to tell about our first experience taking a child to the emergency room. Of course it would be my little boy. Brian had planned a huge paintball game with some of his family and friends. So my sister, Natalie came up to spend some time with us and go to the fair. It was the last day and it was SO hot. Of course, trying to find a parking spot at the fair on Saturday was not going to be easy. We ended up parking down by the baseball diamonds at Willow Park. We didn't mind the walk. It was so nice to be out and about and having some fun. Hunter fell asleep before we could even get into the fairgrounds. I was a little worried about him. He had decided not even a week before that he wanted to be a big boy and wear underwear. Of course, we had only mastered the peeing part of potty-training and had not had a lot of experience with being in town using other toilets OR falling asleep before we had the opportunity to take him to the bathroom. I figured if he had an accident we would just deal with it and not wake him up to go. He gets too cranky. We walked around the fair for about 2 hours before he woke up. He hadn't had an accident and I was really surprised. I tried to take him, but he was not awake enough to be very cooperative. So we waited. We decided to head to see the animals. Along the way we all decided to stop and let all the kids use the bathroom by the rodeo arena. Right outside the bathrooms were all the tractors, so we let the kids look at them while we took shifts helping kids. I was happy to say Hunter was finally successful and I wasn't so worried about going to see the animals. (I'm telling you all this fun stuff because if he would have gone the first time, we wouldn't have ended up in the ER). Brian called to let me know they were out of the canyon and were going to get some things in town. While I am talking to him, Natalie tells me that Hunter has just fallen down but did not seem alarmed. I look at him and he is laying on the ground, but i don't think anything more than that. I tell Brian that he has fallen and proceed to walk the 30 feet towards him. He isn't getting up, but still, I'm not thinking anything else besides him tripping and falling. I am still on the phone with Brian at this point. I get to Hunter and hear a faint moaning sound. He is still laying flat on his face. I roll him over and it wasn't until then that I started to get worried. I notice the "indent" on his forehead and blood start streaming from it. At this point all Brian hears me say is "uh ohh and HELP" then click went the phone. It wasn't until then that Hunter finally started to cry. He was walking around a tractor that had 2 long forks sticking from it. Hunter must have tripped while he was walking and he hit his head on one of them. He didn't get up because it had knocked him out. I was very grateful for the nice people who were around to help. I've helped in emergencies with children before and remained completely calm. But when it is my own child, I had no idea what to do. There was a very kind man who ran over and placed a diaper over his head and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. Once we were able to get it under control, I hitched a ride over to the first aid station. The EMTs were so kind and helpful. They gave Hunter a little multi-colored hippo which he called his horsie. They covered his head with a band aid to help keep it clean and offered to take me to my car. Natalie and the kids finally caught up with us. She had told Brian what had happened and gave me my phone that at some point I vaguely remembered throwing to her and saying, "call Brian". I took the girls with me in the police truck because Natalie would not have room in their SUV for all 6 kids with car seats. Just as we get to the car and get Hunter buckled in, I get a phone call from Brian telling me he will drive the car. I was completely confused. I looked up and there was Brian. When Natalie had called him, they hurried to the fair, parked on the north side of the fair grounds at a friends place. then Brian, Scott and Kurtis, one of Brian's co-workers, ran all they way to the first aid station just barely missing us leaving. Then they all took off towards the ball diamonds. I was so happy to see him there. Scott took the girls and their car seats and hung out at the fair while we went to the ER. We spent 2 hours there watching Finding Nemo while waiting to get him stitched up. He was so good. He only cried when they gave him the shot to numb it. He ended up with 4 stitches. It wasn't very big but it was still a scary experience.