Mother of the Year

Sometimes, your day starts out on the very wrong foot - you yell, you fight, you are short with everyone, you burn your toast, you can't find your keys or your shoes or your hairbrush.  Then you get through breakfast and you think it might get a little better. 

You head out for a nice evening with family - your sister-in-law is having a cookout for her birthday - and things start to get touchy again.  They live on a corner lot and you have a 3-year-old who doesn't understand that a road can be dangerous.  You live on a cul-de-sac with one neighbor beyond you.  No traffic for 1/4 mile.  All of the other kids are running and she thinks she should be allowed to, too.  You thwart her every effort, use every distraction you can think of and finally give up.  You are just going to go home.

But the other kids are having fun, you haven't eaten yet, they haven't even cut the cake!  OK.  You'll stay a bit longer but not much.  You want to get home to talk to Daddy - who was out of town - before night-night.

You sit back down, hand Little One the iPod with her favorite games loaded up, and tuck in.  Not 30 seconds later you're sprinting down the sidewalk - your sister closing in from the other side - when it happens.  She stops short.  You don't.  You trip, landing with your full body weight on her head.  On cement.

In a panic, grandma want to call "911" but your brother's house is a mere 5 blocks from the local hospital!  You toss her in her car seat, tell the other kids to stay put (Youngest Boy is sobbing), and drive away with flashers blinking, running every stop sign and almost a red light. 

They take one look at the mess you are at the ER desk and put you right through.  A doctor sees Little One within 20 minutes and orders a CTscan.  You take this photo to send to your husband who is a thousand miles away and grandma puts a stop to it.  Would you want to see this?:

You wait for what seems like hours (because it nearly is) and finally they take the test (Little One heard she was having her photo taken and, swollen lip and all, gave a trembly smile).  They promise you results within an hour - hopefully less, they say.  After an hour passes you start to worry.  You have been working out a plan to get the bigger kids home (tomorrow is a school day) because it's getting late.  What if the test isn't OK?  You and your husband have already agreed that any treatment beyond a band-aid is being done at the Big City Children's hospital. 

And the results are in.  No fracture.  No swelling or bleeding in the brain.  She can go home.  Wake her up at least once over the course of the night.  Try not to cry yourself to sleep (You fail at this one).  You pick up the other kids, thankful to all be together and on your way home.  The patient talks non-stop on the 25 minute ride - commenting on the lightning strikes, grateful that her siblings are all around her, thank you for my new shirt (they let her wear the hospital gown home so as not to pull her t-shirt over her head) and, oh yeah, Mommy, please don't do that again. :(

It's after midnight before everyone is asleep.  You decide ahead of time tomorrow will be a tardy mark on their school records.  You don't care.  You survived.  She is going to be OK.  But you will both have the marks for a long time - some seen, some unseen.