Four Staples and a Funeral

Well, we've became true parents this week. I think it's a requirement for all parents to have to deal with stitching, super-gluing or stapling back together one of their children (at least one anyway) and we've been initiated finally. After 5 years of a clean record, it's about time. And how did I know that child would be Lucy? She's the more carefree of the girls, also the most reckless at times. But this one wasn't even because of some daredevil stunt.

Here is the accused. What crime, might you ask? Oh let's just say it was all a big spit up, I mean slip up.Innocent looking, right?! Don't be fooled by those big brown eyes. Sure, he's cute, but he is most definitely the culprit here.

Friday night we were getting the kiddos ready for bed. Amelia was declared the tired one for the day and was already in her bed, but Lucy was hanging out with Matthew and me. We were expecting some friends from Holbrook to come and play games, so I motioned for Lucy to follow me upstairs to get Matthew ready for bed, and then she would go to bed. Well, the good big sister that she is, she grabbed a handful of toys for Matthew to play with while I started for the stairs. And that's when he spit. It wasn't even voluminous, like most times, I kind of sighed and said to myself, its only a tiny spit, I'll clean it later, and continued up the stairs. Well, poor Lucy found that pile of spit, and the next thing I knew, there was a loud thud, and a loud cry and Lucy was on the floor. We consoled her, and thought all was well. Then I saw the blood drops on her shirt. When I went to investigate -- I couldn't make it through her hair because of all the blood in her hair. Still not thinking it serious, I carried her upstairs to the bathroom to wash out the blood, and then I saw the lovely open wound. I had never seen a wound before that had me thinking "stitches", so this was my first. Just then, of course, our friends showed up. Which turned out to be a blessing, they offered to watch Matthew and Amelia, and off we went to the Instacare.

One thing was determined in all of this -- Lucy is the bravest little girl I know. I'm glad she was my first child to need stitches, and I'm glad her sister has never needed them. She would have puked on the doctor or something had it been her. But not Lucy. She sat very calm the entire time. On the way there, we were reciting nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill, and Lucy then had it in her mind that the doctors would put her brain back together again. They chose to staple the cut instead of glue or stitch it, which I thought was interesting. I had never seen a doctor staple someone. It really is just a stapler they use! I'm sure it claims to be a medical stapler, but a staple is a staple, and they shoved four of them into my little girl's head. The saddest part were the tears that streamed down her very still face while they were numbing the area, and then putting the staples in. I think I was saying comforting words to comfort myself more than her! But she was brave!! Brave, brave little Lucy! And they haven't fazed her since. I couldn't be more proud!

As for the funeral, after 7 1/2 years of delicious waffles, our beloved little Toast Master waffle maker died.
It did have the decency to wait until the last waffle of the morning had been poured though. It was a faithful little thing. But with that, we decided it was a good time for an upgrade. We like waffles, I hate to admit it but my children probably have syrup meals about 3 times a week. (sometimes more...) So we looked in America's Test Kitchen cookbook for a product recommendation and went with their economical recommended waffle maker, the Black & Decker grill and waffle baker. Works pretty nicely, although they said they came out evenly done, and ours had some heat variation. But still made some pretty good waffles!
And look! It makes 4 squares at once!! That's probably my favorite part!