More stitches!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture, but Patrick had to get 10 stitches last night!  Mom was at church for a dinner for work, and the boys were in the babysitting room.  When I dropped them off, I thought they were being a little squirrely, and even commented to the kind (and volunteer) babysitter “Good luck!”  At the end of the evening – almost 8 – Joe came into the room with all of the adults and told me that Pat hurt himself.  Pat often hurts himself and it’s not too big of a deal.  There was no panic in Joe’s voice, so I said a few more goodbyes before heading to the door.  On my way out, I saw another adult looking for me, and he DID have panic in his face.

He lead me to the men’s room downstairs where Patrick was covered in blood (the babysitter, too) and crying.  It was a pretty severe gash, right on the corner of his forehead near the hairline.  That poor sitter.  She has several kids of her own, but she was pretty distraught that this had happened on her watch.  Apparently, Patrick ran in to the corner of a metal TV cart while he was being a bit wild.

Scott was out of town and the rest of the boys were late for bed already.  It took me a minute to try to think of a strategy to avoid four cranky, tired boys waiting for hours in an ER.  Lucky for me, my boss Joan and another woman that I hardly knew was right there with me.  The other woman, Beth, I later learned, took charge.  She told me to get in her car with Patrick and that Joan would take the other kids home to bed in my car.

Beth was the most perfect person for the job.  She worked with head injuries at the hospital we went to.   Plus, she understood my aversion to all things bloody and my usual pregnancy nausea.  She was so kind to stay with Patrick for the stitching when I just had to go take a walk.  He was already asleep by then anyway.  She was the angel sent by God to help me get through that day!

Pat has recovered nicely.  Just a little headache from the trauma and in need of a good nap since we got home after 10.  He even got a beany baby at the hospital – a rhino named Spike.  Cute.

Kindergarten Graduation

Poor Joe!  We’d been looking forward to his Kindergarten graduation for weeks.  The kids had songs planned and a cute little ceremony where we knew he would be saying goodbye to his little buddies.  Just two days before, Joe got the stomach flu!  We don’t often get the flu at our house (knock on wood!) and he was just plain miserable.  At one point, he told me “Mommy, can you please pray for me?”

Eight barfs and almost exactly 24 hours later, he finally was done.  We were counting the hours until his graduation.  We didn’t want to get any of the other kids sick, but he didn’t want to miss it, either.  It was 22 hours from the last barf to the start of graduation, so we decided to go for it.  I told him that if he felt yucky at all, to just run for the nearest bathroom and I would go help him.

It was sweet to see how all of the kids were excited to see him walk in the room that morning.  He announced to everyone, “My mom said if I have to throw up to just run to the bathroom!”  Nice.

MaKenna, Joe and Ella.   You may remember Ella from a previous post about a certain Valentine’s art project.

The ceremony went off without a hitch, except that mommy and daddy both cried a little.  We LOVE Aquinas Academy so much and his teacher was so dear to him this year.  She did such a great job with the whole class, and I can’t believe how much he learned in just one year. 

Joe and the awesome Mrs. LaFond

A family shot at Joe’s big event

I got to see Mrs. LaFond in action the next day when the Kindergartners were all invited back to school to participate in field day.

All of the kids were so engaged listening to her.  Thank God for wonderful, loving teachers.

Good bye, Aquinas Academy.  We will miss you terribly!