In Our Family, We Expect the Unexpected!!!

It's funny how you never know how each day will go, but I am beginning to think the "norm" for our family is to "expect the unexpected"......especially since little Esther Marie joined our family!

Saturday started out pretty well....nice weather, bagels and coffee (compliments of an early-rising dad), and kids who were in pretty good moods. I woke with a slight headache but nothing I couldn't get over. Everyone ate breakfast, got dressed and off to the library we headed...complete with diaper bags, cameras, etc. I always feel like a "bag lady" these days because we have so much stuff we haul around with us when we go out. Our library was having a fall "Oktoberfest" for the children and I thought it would be something fun to do together as a family. The kids enjoyed music, dancing, activities, food, and crafts. They also had a chance to use a computer for some drawing and they found some books to check out.

Afterwards, we headed to our local botanical garden to have some sandwiches we bought at a nearby place. It's so nice these days that the weather is in the 80s vs. the 90s...what a difference that makes! As we neared the end of our meal, it began to rain so we ditched the idea of walking around the gardens and the lake. Jasper headed home with Joshua and Esther Marie, and our two older girls and I ventured out to an "open house" at a holiday shop. It was fun to look around and sample some of the foods they had, but a little too early for me to take Christmas shopping very seriously. When we finished there, we ended up in a few more shops just looking around and having a good time. I did buy some new glassware because I absolutely couldn't stand the mis-matched, plastic cups on the table any more!

So where is the "unexpected" part of this day??? Well, the kids were laughing and dancing and playing in the den while Jasper and I began to make some dinner for the whole crew. Suddenly, we heard Hannah screaming and literally freaking out. She ran into the kitchen holding Esther Marie....screaming that Esther Marie was bleeding. Sure enough...blood was all over Hannah's hands and arms and the back of the baby's PJ top. She had fallen and knocked her head on a corner of something and was bleeding. Hannah was so upset, bawling her head off, and the baby was not crying at all. That was a bit surreal for sure. I had to double check to see which child was really the hurt and bleeding one! We made a call to the nurse and she arranged for us to go to the after-hours clinic vs. having to head downtown to the ER. That was SUCH a blessing! We arrived at the clinic around 8:15 and finished there around 10:30 p.m. They deadened the back of Esther Marie's head with some cold, gunky stuff....wrapped up her head in a bandage....and then waited for things to get numb. The sweet doctor sewed her up with just a few stitches. The most heartbreaking part was not being able to explain to Esther Marie what was going on. They wrapped her up in a sheet and bundled her up so she was totally immobile while they were working on her. She screamed and cried and it broke my heart! After it was all over though, she was blowing kisses and waving bye-bye. She is getting so used to being at the doctor or the hospital that she now sees the identification band and raises her little leg so we can put it around her ankle...without us even telling her to do so. Esther Marie is SO trusting, unafraid, and SO active, and therefore seems to be much more accident-prone than any of my other children have ever been....yikes!

We never got to eat dinner, so around 11:00 PM we finally stopped somewhere and everyone ate. MaryAlyce fell asleep at the table and Esther Marie ate and ate and ate! I hope she is not going to be a "stress eater" like her mommy! We got most of the kids tucked into bed around 12:30 and Esther Marie fell asleep around 1:30. We had a little scare where she threw up some but we think it was because of all the crying she had done earlier that evening. Nonetheless, we checked her every two hours to make sure everything was okay.

Since we were all "fried" because of our unexpected ordeal, we didn't make it to church today. The kids were disappointed, but we thought it was best to just stay home and take things easy. Esther Marie seems to be acting like her normal, cheerful little self...except she keeps touching the back of her hair that is crunchy from all the gunk they put in it last night. We are not allowed to wash her hair for at least 24 hours, so we will just wait until tomorrow. The stitches should dissolve in about a week, but if not, we will go and have the nurse pull them out to avoid worse scarring.

We just thank God that this unexpected event was not worse than it was and that His mighty hands were around her and protected her the way that He always has!