Weekend Warrior

We had a crazy weekend-filled with all sorts of great things, but as I'm gathering pictures from the lovely "restful" weekend we had, I thought I'd start by sharing my sweet, gentle, docile, quiet little Dallin's weekend with you. For those of you who also keep up with Aaron's blog, you know the general story. but Mom has the pictures! :)



First-the infamous teeter-bob. What the heck is a teeter-bob anyway? Don't know. My boring self has always just known it as a teeter totter or see-saw, but whatever. We have some friends who are neighbors of my parents who were getting rid of some outside play things. Before they just donated them to a thrift shop they checked with us to see if we were interested. Yay! They have become the obsession of the kids for the past week and provided many hours of entertainment already. So, the story begins with this:
Now you have a visual of the beginning of Dallin's evening. No-that's not Dallin, and yes, that is two grown men. I said grown, not mature. But look at those grins. Awwwww!

So that is the infamous "teeter-bob". The great thing is that you can pack like 6 kids onto it at once and keep everyone entertained! The horrible thing is that like 6 (or more) wild little hellions typically with entirely too much sugar in their systems can pack themselves onto it after running themselves into a frothing frenzy, and have an amazingly crazy time. We put together a little impromptu bbq with a couple of neighbors on Saturday night and ended up with 15 little ones running around. I wish I had a group photo. We had a 9, 8 and 7yr old, everyone else was 6 down to 1. Fun times! (no really-it was!) As anyone knows, you put that many little ones together, someone is bound to get hurt. Especially when 6 of those 15 belong to Aaron and I. Well, Saturday night was Dallin's turn.

Dinner was great, all the kids ate, everyone was playing nicely and having a wonderful time. As kids were jumping on and off the "bob", I was so impressed that they were doing such a great job taking turns! Yay kids! Hooray for sharing! This left us adults to chit-chat at a safe 10 or so feet away without having to intervene (except in the form of constantly asking Malia to go play since apparently she thinks she is one of the adults now and would regularly plunk herself in the midst of our conversations). All was well. Plenty loud, but well. Dallin was having a turn on the teeter totter, when as the sucker got rocking back and forth wildly he ended up sliding forward and smashing himself. When a guy gets knocked between the legs, it almost always evokes a snicker. Even from other "empathetic" guys. When it happens to a three year old it's just sad. All right, still a little funny, but sad. Then to add insult to injury, as he was scooting backward off the teeter totter, the end flipped up and smacked him in the mouth. Nothing like limping over to mom in all your glory for a little comfort and a cold cloth to stop your lip from dripping blood. Poor kid. But as is typical with him, a good 2 minutes of "you'll be ok", and he was back in the middle of the fray.

Play continues on, and as happens with boys, turned a little bit more rough. Between the pushing and chasing and rough-housing, Dallin ended up knocked off or pulled off the teeter totter. But didn't land on his feet. No, his feet were under the thing. With most of his legs. Unbeknownst to the two boys still rocking wildly on the thing. You can see in the picture that it has a U-shaped bottom, so each time they rocked one direction, it went right over Dallin's legs. My first reaction was "Dallin-hop up! You're going to get hurt!" I don't know if it was worry for getting hit in the face (or elsewhere) again, or if it was just too hard for him to roll himself out of the way, but he ended up rolled over a few times. As I ran over to pull him out I could see that it was rocking right over the middle of his shins. My mind flashed to having a 3yr old in double casts with 9-month pregnant me trying to get through packing him around for the next little while. Lovely visual. Thankfully since they were on grass instead of a hard surface, his legs compressed enough into the ground that all he ended up with is a couple of really bruised shins. Thank Heavens! Phew! Real disaster averted. Teeter-bob removed from the scene. Sorry Bob-enough offenses for the night.

Since it was getting late and the kids were all starting to break down anyway, we broke it up for the evening. Friends dispersed to their homes and we shuffled ours into the house for the night. Since Dallin was still wimpering and was appropriately dirty for the end of a Saturday, we threw him and Lincoln into the shower to clean off while we put the rest of the mess away. Everything was going well, everyone getting ready for bed, and the night seemed to be wrapping up nicely. We made some plans to get together with some friends for games once the kids were in bed, and were looking forward to it.

Enter the next scream.

Ah-nothing so fun as to run to the bathroom to field a scream that ends with throwing open the shower curtain and seeing a scene that could be right out of Psycho. Blood dripping off the walls, down the tub, and all over your naked 3 yr old. Great. In the attempt to stay calm and not frighten the kid anymore, we gingerly rinsed him off, and got the boys out of the tub and started getting them ready for bed. Dallin obviously knew he was bleeding, so we found the dark washcloth that we could plaster on his chin so that he didn't see the blood, until he was calmed down to allow us a better look. I snuck a peek as I was putting the washcloth against his chin, and it was not good. In hopes of not setting Aaron into a panic (he's not the type to panic, but gets nervous when things happen to the kids, and seemed just a tad on edge after Dallin's evening), when he asked if it needed stitches I just kind of casually answered, "Well, maybe. Take a look in a minute after Lincoln's all dressed." Maybe I should of just answered "heck ya! Take a look at this puppy!" Dallin lay on the bathroom floor wrapped in his towel for a few minutes while Aaron went to get a flashlight for a good look at the chin. Not realizing that any extra light would be totally unnecessary. But hey-it distracted them both for a few minutes! : ) One click glance from dad-followed by a big eye-roll and and "oh geez"-and they were off.

So the evening wrapped up with Aaron taking Dallin in for stitches. And of course this all happened 20 minutes after the clinic closest to our house closed, so he got to drive the extra 10min in to the other one. Thankfully it is open later and saved a hospital visit! I figured the grand finale for the evening could be Aaron calling to let me know that they made it to the clinic and my water breaking right as they started stitching Dallin. No such luck though! ;) By the time they made it home around 11:00, Dallin was wired as can be, loving his new "Lion whiskers" and boasting that he would have a scar like Indiana Jones. Ok. Whatever floats your boat kiddo! Plus he was thrilled with the cowboy bandaid that was stuck on his toe which had been stubbed earlier in the week and began bleeding yet again as he was at the clinic. As luck would have it, by 11pm, one stitch was already out, and another loosening up. Which required a repeat trip to the clinic Sunday morning to get restitched and tightened up. He was happy to go back out with Dad, and kept the staff at the clinic completely entertained for the second day in a row. Hopefully we won't have to go back until we get them removed at the end of the week!


As you can see, he was obviously torn up about the evening.

This morning you'd never know that anything went wrong with him this weekend if it weren't for the purple shins, scabbed up lip, and bandaged chin.

Never a dull moment here.