Oh Bloody He....

ad! Bloody Head! After an almost blood free nearly 9 year parenting stint my streak was ended suddenly yesterday. A little back story first, my children are klutzy. They get it solely from my side and I've embraced this about them. They are also incredibly dramatic, this I'd like to blame on their father, again it's all me. So now that we've established these two important facts let's resume the story.

Joshua and Kaity were playing imagination upstairs with gusto and great detail until Joshua fell off Kaity's bed and hit his head on the bin of barbie furniture. All I heard downstairs was the THUD of impact followed by several seconds of silence and then the shriek of "I've got blood! I've got BLOOD!" Joshua has 'had blood' before and it was a tiny speck of blood that when wiped away didn't even return so for him to be shrieking didn't really alarm me. In fact, I called out "come downstairs" as I headed toward them from the kitchen.

We met behind the couch in the living room Joshua's hands covered in blood and his hair streaked red. I should also remind you that I rarely play poker because I don't have a very good bluff face and in the 2 seconds it took me to remember to bluff I must have had the "OH MY STARS YOU HAVE BLOOD" face because in that moment he lost it and started sobbing. I took him and his bleeding self to the kitchen and applied pressure to the back of his head still not sure if it was ER worthy or not and started asking questions.

Kaity was pacing back and forth in the kitchen so I sent her upstairs to get me a pair of pants and a tshirt (i was in pj's still and not outside-able pj's either!) She ran upstairs and I got Joshy calm enough to tell me that he fell off the bed. He then started this rhythmic chanting sob combo that went something like

wahwahwahWENEEDDADDYwahwahINHALINGSCREAMwahwahwahWENEEDDADDY

While Joshua was chobbing? santing? okay okay while Joshua was crying Kaity came back downstairs with clothes for him. I told her thank you (he was already dressed) and asked her to go upstairs and just grab me a pair of jeans.

She ran back upstairs.

He kept crying.

I kept applying pressure and decided, on my own of course, that we needed daddy!


I have never called Jeremy at work with a frantic "Come home" plea until yesterday. I called and
he could hear Joshua crying in the background and said he'd be home shortly. I hung up and informed Joshy in the most loving mothering nurturing voice I have that if he didn't stop crying that particular cry I wouldn't be able to help him because it made my brain melt. He immediately stopped, and I removed the 2nd round of paper towels to see how we were doing with clotting.

Insert a frantic Kaity tearing into the kitchen holding a pair of wadded up jeans that had obviously just been taken off. I look from the jeans (which had a pair of panties still coming out the top) to Kaity and back again. "Kaity, those are YOUR jeans....Mommy needs pants. for me. my pants for me." I don't know that I can capture the level of intensity with which she spat out the next sentence "THEY ARE THE ONLY JEANS I CAN FIND!" and she looked at me like I was crazy for not at least trying to make them fit!

Joshua saw the fear/nervousness on Kaity's face and said "Are you worried about me?" and she welled up with tears and said through quivering lips "yes" to which he assumed the epic wail from earlier only the phrase was "DONT WORRY ABOUT ME IT MAKES IT HURT WORSE!" Kaity kept trying not to worry but said she couldn't stop caring, he kept sobbing that she was making it hurt worse by caring about him. I sent her upstairs one last time for a pair of jeans for me w/specific instructions on where they would be and moved the whole fiasco into the living room.

While we were moving I took my hand off the back of Joshua's head and he gasped and screeched "put your hand back put your hand back! I can feel my brain leaking out" In actuality he could feel the bleeding starting again, although I couldn't convince him of that fact. His little body had been so tense and now his shoulders slumped and he sighed a sigh so deep it almost consumed him "Now I think I've gotta die" I laid his head in my lap and started cleaning the blood out of his hair as I promised him he wasn't going to die, that daddy was on his way home, that he didn't even need to go to the doctor and that ouchies on your head just bleed a lot. Kaity came tearing down the stairs yet again with clothes for me, she'd gone into the closet, she was sure it was right. She brought me a pair of Jeremy's jean shorts and a tshirt. I simply said thank you.

Jeremy came in while I was finishing up getting the blood out of Joshua's hair and he did all the corpsman daddy stuff and deemed him okay. Joshua was relieved that he didn't have to die quite yet and that his brains were still intact inside his head. He asked how much blood was in his hair and if it looked red, I told him that I had gotten most of it out and he started crying again. Apparently the best part of a head injury, in his little mind, was that he got to keep red hair. He had a whopping headache for the rest of the day and took it pretty easy. Last night he couldn't lay on his back to sleep because it was sore and he's got a pretty gnarly scab. Wow....what a Thursday!

**my husband has asked me to add this disclaimer stating that the blood volume may have been (he says greatly) exaggerated during the hysteria of the moment...I say he wasn't here there was blood people!**

Anniversary Fest is finished for another year.

As the clock creeps towards midnight anniversary-fest is officially being put to bed as well. Jeremy took Thursday and Friday off so we could just enjoy our little family and all the schilltastic4 goodness we could stuff into 4 funtastic days.


Our actual anniversary was Thursday and we decided to spend the day together doing family stuff. A tradition has been born over the years that we have a 'family date' on our anniversary to involved everybody in our Family Birthday. I cannot begin to describe how much I love this tradition (but read on I'm sure I'll try!) because it was born completely in our family. I think traditions are fantastic when they are passed down from generation to generation but I also like that we've given the children a way to celebrate and embrace the importance and significance of our wedding day.


I woke up Thursday after everybody was already awake to find a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me and Kaity had made a card for us. She is through and through a holiday kid, so the card was not a surprise but it was so sweet and beautiful. She wrote "Happy Family Birthday" and drew each of our faces on the front surrounded by hearts. On the inside she wrote a poem:

"Out of our family you two are the first part
Because of you our Family had a start
Then came Joshy and me
To make one big happy family"

It made my heart swell with a combination of joy and pride. She is such a sweet girlchild, and I am reminded so very often.


A little bit later Joshua was looking at the flowers and asked "Are the yellow ones dandelions?" I told him they were not so he started turning the vase very very slowly, checking out each flower in the arrangement. I was watching him and could almost see his wheels turning, I didn't know what he was thinking but I could tell he was really concentrating. "I don't think Daddy got any dandelions in here, doesn't he know they are your favorite?" What a thoughtful guy, to remember all winter long what flowers make me smile come spring. I then showed him my second favorite (snap dragons) and how Daddy had gotten several of those instead. Moments like that make me feel like I've done my Mom gig justice, if my 5 yr old is convinced that my favorite flower ever is a dandelion I've surely not messed up too badly along the way right?

We got ready and headed out to have our fun. We had lunch at the coolest place ever invented in the eyes of my babies.....THE FOOD COURT! If it's their favorite who am I to argue?
We played glow in the dark golf and had the place entirely to ourselves, it was so much fun. We laughed our way through all the orange course and part of the green before heading to the final putt. Joshua and I both won free games for the next time we go which was a total bonus! Glow in the dark golf was a pretty high bar to set for our first family activity so in order to meet the level of cool we headed over to Chuck E Cheese where we bought drinks and lots and lots of tokens and had at it for a few hours. It wasn't very busy and the kids have been saving their tickets so they each ended up getting a pretty cool toy at the end.
Our typical Thursday afternoons are spent cooking for youth group and as we loaded into the van to head to church Kaity had a moment of panic and shouted "We forgot to cook the food!" Again, sweet girlchild she is :) Earlier in the week another family at church volunteered to buy the kids pizza for youth group which was a total blessing and welcome break so we could enjoy our day.

Silly me, I thought the anniversary fun was over at this point. I couldn't have been more wrong, those wonderful teenagers had arrived early for youth group to decorate a room. There were signs hung that said beautiful things, balloons all over the place, and hearts filled the walls. I am so touched by their thoughtfulness. "Happy Anniversary" was chorused over and again, I am in awe of how blessed I am to have such wonderful people in every corner of my life.


Friday was the couple portion of Anniversary fest and we seriously got our grub on! Opa in Vernon Hills is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! We are already planning a repeat visit because we didn't meet a dish we didn't dig! We had a lovely lunch and enjoyed the occasional quiet between bites that sometimes gets lost when you have kidlets at the table. After lunch we made a quick stop at the cheesecake factory for a much needed (for me at least) slice o'cheesecake to enjoy during our movie. We saw "Date Night" and it was pretty funny, definitely a good date night movie!


All the while Kaity and Joshy were at home protecting our home from an invasion....or rather staging an invasion! We walked into the house and were met by a monster on the door....another was found in the cupboard! Another in my candy stash! Another in the freezer?! I went potty and closed the door to find a monster waiting behind it! While we were out having our fun they were home having their own with a family friend. They went on a bike ride and played outside and then started drawing pictures. Somehow it became drawing monsters and eventually they were hidden all throughout the house, it seriously makes me crack up and most of them are still chillaxin' as we speak. Kaity, at the wise old age of 8 3/4, is rather aloof and trained in the ways of playing coy when waiting for a joke to unfold. Joshy with all his 5 yrs of experience is more like a chihuahua on a sugar buzz.....without actually saying LOOK HERE!! LOOK HERE!!! he would coax us to "fix food from THAT FREEZER...hehehehehehehe" or "GO POTTY RIGHT NOW! tehehehehe" It was beyond adorable to watch them both play it out, and if ever I need a quick poker buddy, my money is on the girl.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the sunshine and having great fun which will be blogged about soon, but for tonight I'm heading to bed. Happy and Blessed, there is nothing better.

And the story begins.....

Fifteen years ago today I got a phone call from Jeremy telling me he was on his way to Illinois from Georgia on Emergency Leave. I panicked for a moment wondering what the emergency was, and then he said I was his emergency. I was unhappy and we had been too far apart for too long. We had been engaged for a while and were planning our wedding for August of 95 so in reality it was only a few months early but never in my whole life had I been rescued. It was the beginning of our beautiful happily ever after. Within the next 3 days we'd have his family travel in from Wisconsin to be a part of our wedding. His parents do not travel and yet they came. We had guests and wedding cake. My gown and his dress blues. Attendants and a church full of witnesses. Wedding rings were ready early and flowers were remembered last minute. A u-haul with all my earthly possessions and off we went. We never had a true "honeymoon" but I am so thankful for that fact, we instead got to make our reality into our honeymoon. By the time we'd been in Georgia for 24 hours we had our first 'house', a little modular home in a prefab community. I would later find out that modular home is code for trailer and prefab did not, in fact, mean pretty fabulous but rather trailer park. Oh what an amazing adventure we've had.....