ER - This Time Boy-Child Style

Remember how I said if the girl-child had cut her finger here, I'd have had her go SOMEWHERE?

The gods must have been listening.

In a series of events that could only occur in my son's life, he broke his nose yesterday. Actually, he broke the *tip* of his nose. There's some swelling in one nostril, a bruise that makes him look like he dipped his nose in purple paint, and some residual pain.

It took a trip to the urgent care facility, a denial of referral from his doc, a trip to the ER, a 2.5 hour wait, 4 x-rays, almost a CT scan, and 15 minutes with the ER doc (c'mon, sing it with me..."and a patridge in a pear treeeee....") to determine that his nose was indeed broken.

Picture this - 2 strapping 18 (or 19) year old men wrestling around on the ground. His opponent's hand on his face, trying to force him into a headlock and him trying like hell not to end up in said headlock. The walk home going something like this:

"Good fight, dude - you've gotten better!"
"Thanks, man. But my nose kinda hurts."
"Lemme see. (looking at my son's face) "DUDE - it's really swollen!"
"Yeah, I think you broke it."
"No WAY!"
"Yeah, way, man. High five!"

*sigh*


Last night on the way home from the hospital:

Him: My first broken bone! And it's my NOSE! How cool is THAT?!?
Me: Yeah. Cool. Well, at least it doesn't show.
Him: I know. I'm bummed. What a conversation starter THAT could have been!
Me: Yeah, well...sorry it didn't work out for you.

God spare me from boy-children, please?

What price fun?

I'm not a martyr. Really, I'm not. Bill *did* ask me 3 times if I wanted sunscreen and I said no. So it's my own fault. No one to blame but ME. And a beautiful day at the beach.

I have a farmer's tan. Well, I HAD a farmer's tan. Also known as a planter's tan.

For those of you who don't know, it's when your arms are tanned from the elbows down because you've worn short sleeves all summer and never exposed your upper arms to the sun. So you're pasty white to the elbows (or however long your most often-worn short sleeves fall to), and tan from there down.

Well, let's just say THAT virgin's been deflowered. Bill and I spent the most wonderful weekend at the beach, walking, walking, walking. The sand was warm, the water was chilly, the sun was bright, and on we walked. Miles of beach one way and miles of boardwalk back. Spent time in the arcades, which Bill loves, throwing money at video poker and winning tickets for junk that we don't have room for. Buying a new cage for the hermit crab I got last year - complete with a friend (buy the cage, get the crab free!). But DAMN, skippy - we had a blast!

The catch is - I wore a sleeveless shirt and shorts for the first time all summer for this escapade. So instead of being pasty white from the elbows up, I am screaming red. Not quite the fashion statement I was going for. Oh yeah - the shirt was v-neck, so I have that tan/burn too. And the backs of my knees. OH yeah...you know it! And to cap it off, a flip-flop tan on my feet. Those didn't burn, but the straps of the flip-flops are now permanent.

All things being equal, I can't complain. As I said, he DID offer to buy me sunscreen, which I refused.

We had an awesome time visiting all the little Jersey beach towns. OC, Wildwood, Sea Isle, AC. We ate 3 Brothers Pizza, Shriver's Salt Water Taffy, Kohr Bros. ice cream and Bubba Dog's hot dogs. In AC, we gambled at the penny slot machines in Caesar's and Wild Wild West. We ate dinner in the casino and gambled some more (we're SUCH big spenders!). We talked and laughed and walked until we were so stiff we didn't think we'd be able to move.

It was the most awesome weekend of the summer so far and if I have to pay for it with the sunburn from hell that STILL hurts and is red and is going to peel like a rotten orange, then so be it!

ER - Girl-Child Style

OK, so I would have taken her to the ER whether I could see the bone or not. Yes, I realize it costs $100 in co-pay, but that much blood warrants something more than "If you can't see the bone, I'll put a bandaid on it and go home."

Let me back into this.

Megs lives with her dad over the summer, and this year, she's a CIT at the local day camp. As part of what they do there, the kids work on community service projects and earn karma points.

This year's project is deforestation of the camp, and since Denver's been under drought for so long, they can't run controlled burns. They have the older kids from camp (under supervision, of course) with hand saws, pruners, loppers and whatever else they need. Meghan's tool of choice was a set of pruners, since she was removing small branches from a Douglas Fir that someone else had cut down.

As she's pruning away, she is (as girls will) talking to her best friend out there, and, well, not *quite* paying enough attention to the work at hand (no pun intended).

That's when (according to her), she pruned her left index finger along with the branch on which she was working.

Me: OMG!! Are you OK?!?!?

Her: Yeah, at first I was really mad, but then I couldn't stop laughing.

Me: LAUGHING?!? Is something WRONG with you???

Her: No, it was just funny. But mom - I had NO idea how much fingers bled! Both my hands were COVERED in blood!

Me (trying not to be sick as I'm sitting in traffic on the way to the Kimberton Fair with her brother): Uh, yeah...there are lots of blood vessels and stuff in them. Did you have to get stitches?

Her: Nah...the ranger said if I couldn't see the bone, it was OK.

Me: See the BONE?!? How deep did you cut?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Her: Well, after I washed off all the blood and the ranger dropped half a bottle of ALCOHOL in it, which made me really MAD, we looked at it. It was deep. But we couldn't see, like, bone or muscles or anything. So he gave me a band-aid and some tape so it wouldn't get banged around.

Me (feeling slightly ill): Huh. Ok, did Dad look at it? (as if THAT would make a difference, since he doesn't *do* blood)

Her (laughing): Uh, that would be a "no." It's fine mom. Doesn't even really hurt anymore. Throbs a little, but it's not too bad.

Me: OK, sweetie. Make sure you keep Neosporin and bandaid on it.

Her brother (from the passenger seat): Tell her if she doesn't want a scar, it HAS to be Neosporin.

Me: Did you hear that?

Her: Yeah. I'm fine with a scar if it does - better story. Well, we're checking out at Barnes and Noble. Gotta go - love you!


Can I just tell you?? I would have had her butt SOMEWHERE...ER, doctor's office, whatever. "If you can't see the bone, it doesn't need stitches"?!? Oy.

I guess it could have been worse...she could have done it here and I would have made a scene and embarrassed her.

God forbid.

Make new friends, but keep the old...

Why is it that staying in touch with old friends is SO hard? What happens to us that we lose touch with people that we spent every day, or several days a week with in our past?

I was so blessed last week to have the opportunity to catch up with 3 old friends. Actually, catch up with one and reconnect with 2 (who happen to have married each other).

My friend Melissa moved to AZ to marry the man of her dreams. And honestly, he'd be the man of MY dreams if he wasn't married to her! Melissa and Nate have a fabulous marriage and a beautiful little boy, and the connection between them is amazing. She and I stay in touch through email and our blogs, and we send about half a novel to each other every couple months to catch each other up. And once a year, she comes back to Pennsylvania to get together with her family and friends. I was lucky enough to catch up with her and her family for a couple hours in a diner between where she was staying and where I live. It was JUST like old times - no one else could get a word in edgewise because we pick up where we left off. We both speak quickly and we still have that friends' "shorthand" that no one but us understands. It was a Friday night and the diner was empty, sort of, and I had a great time with the three of them. Unfortunately, my fiance and her husband just kinda had to sit back and watch, because, well, they're men and they don't bond the way women do.

Saturday was spent with extended family at the annual reunion picnic. Once a year, my mother's family gets together so we see each other outside of the occasional wedding and/or funeral. And trust me, the funerals are far outnumbering the weddings as we all age (gracefully, of course!). This gives us a chance to catch up on everyone and their families, and it's a lot of fun.

Saturday night, I got a phone call from a girl with whom I was friendly most of my high school years. I'd gone to her wedding, kept in touch after her son was born and she divorced the @$$ that was his father, through her second marriage I think I saw her once, and then all of a sudden - WHAM - we lost touch. Through a networking website, she found me and we began emailing. Next thing I know, I get a phone call from her and we spent 2 hours on the phone reminiscing, catching up on old times and each others' families and laughing til I thought we'd burst. I'm thrilled to have heard from her and her husband, who was also part of the group with whom we associated in high school. It's funny how all the old social crap falls away, and we're all just parents and homeowners with more in common than you'd ever have thought way back when.

There's something about reconnecting with old friends that just makes me happy. Perhaps it's the lack of "new" friends in my life, or the fact that I really never had a chance to stay in touch with them because when I married my (now ex) husband, his friends became our friends, and there wasn't room for mine anymore. Who knows? And now, who cares? I'm happier than I've ever been and reconnecting with old friends is just the icing on the cake.

SO - Donna and Melissa, if you read this, know that you both hold a special place in my heart, and it is my intention to NEVER allow us to lose touch.