Hellboy

• Sometime on Sunday SG noticed the scissors lying on CW's art table and wandered off with them to snip hole after hole in his brand new, bright green jersey sheets.
• At some OTHER point on Sunday SG took Matt's CPAP mask out of our room, into CW's, where he dismantled it and did bad things to it, necessitating a 90 search of the house (beginning around 9:45pm) for one particular piece (eventually found in CW's garbage), and a 20 minute procedure to extract an acrylic diamond cut bead from the end of the hose.
• 7:30pm put the kids to bed, discovering in the process, SG's trashed sheets. Both kids got in trouble.
  
• Monday morning Matt called FROM THE OFFICE around 7 am to tell my drugged self (when we'd despaired of finding the CPAP mask piece, I'd taken stuff to make sure I slept through the inevitable snoring and thrashing) that our router was down, and I needed to call Verizon about it. I woke up an hour later (when CW left for school, slamming the front door) on my face in bed with the phone still in my hand.
• Checked the router, called Verizon, went through the troubleshooting with the girl and discovered that the power supply had melted itself from the inside and there was a melted dent in it. So, no internet and no OnDemand until it got fixed.
• Monday and Tuesday SG spent a fair amount of time on Matt's computer, I did huge amounts of laundry - everything that can be washed (aside from CW's bedding) has been.
• SG has been locked out of our bathroom again. He lotioned the bathroom one morning while he was ostensibly watching a movie in our room. Then another day, when CW left the door unlocked (I just LOVE having an older one!), he flossed it with the entirety of Matt's box of floss, and I found things in the garbage that shouldn't have been, as well as things on the counter that previously were in the garbage. Curious little bastard. 8)
• Yesterday I was upstairs doing something, Matt caught SG with the fireplace doors open, Duraflame starting brick on the grate and climbing up to grab the fireplace matches (10" long wooden ones) from the mantle. He wanted a fire. 8) the matches are back up on top of the wall unit now.
  
  We're hoping this week's resurgence of HellBoy is temporary...

ER trips #348 and 349

I'm just glad this one wasn't on my watch.

I'd spent so much time out of the house, running errands and going to appointments that when the choice came up yesterday afternoon, I jumped at the chance to stay home by myself. I'd already taken CW to the Optometrist's office and spent 2 hours and over $200 (after insurance) with her, so I felt justified in NOT going to drop CW at a party (4-7pm), hit the library and take SG to the playground.

5:40pm Matt and SG walk back in, with SG waving a bloody paper towel. "Mom! Mom! Wooka myCHIN!" Stuck him up on the counter, mopped it with a wet paper towl, and decided it needed stitches. Well, at least I was already clean and dressed, right? I have this horrible fear that one day, I'll have to take someone to the ER and I won't have showered.

Got there, SG dances into the waiting room and triage area, and generally gives the impression that NOTHING is wrong with him, except perhaps in the head. ;) It being a nice Saturday afternoon here in the 'burbs, the ER was busy furnishing the general population with splints and arms slings - 3 people thusly treated were discharged while we waited to be taken back.

He was good in the room, although I did have to apologize to the nurses when he pressed the call button. Then it was decreed that yes, in fact, he needed a couple of stitches. Out came the papoose (too small) and the pillowcase to help restrain his arms at his side (seemed cruel and unusual, but made sense), and the sterile drapes (It's REALLY hard NOT to touch the tops of those things!) Then the screaming began. The pillowcase was slid up his arms behind him to keep them down at his sides, and then he was placed on the papoose and velcroed up - chest, hips and legs. When I say it like that it doesn't sound to bad, right? Ever tried to put a cat in a barrel of water? Yeah. I ended up laying on his knees once he managed to break the velcro's hold (I'm still sore today). Matt had one hand on his forehead, and another on this chest, and the male nurse was holding SG's head as still as he could.

The Nurse Practitioner put one of those tissue drapes over his face - the ones with a hole through which they actually do the work - and SG REALLY lost it. Spitting, blowing malicious snot, thrashing and screaming, "No, guys! No! Take it off!! Don't wantnymore!! Let me UP!" Words in the screaming made it so much worse than when it was just screaming. But horribly, we were all half laughing - not because we were enjoying it, but because he was SO, so HIM. Matt and I have seen this before (unfortunately), and will likely see it again, but it's always somewhat amusing when other people encounter him in an intense state like that. Shock and awe is really the best way to explain it.

Anyway, two stitches was all he needed, and as soon as we uncovered his face (his hair was soaked, his face dripping and red) he was mostly fine. The NP wanted to check the inside of his mouth to make sure there was no damage to the jaw and whatnot. *snicker* She tried a tongue depressor and a light, and asking him nicely. He clamped his mouth shut and had his lips SO tightly pressed together it looked like he had none. She told the nurse to pinch his nose shut and I laughed outright, "That doesn't work either, he'll just..." and his lips opened the TINIEST bit, "...breathe through his teeth. He does this at the pediatrician's office - we've never gotten him to open up."

She bowed her head and chuckled at this point, but conceded that since he was doing what he was doing, there obviously wasn't a problem with the jaw. So we let him up entirely, at which point he was dancing and giggling around the room again. The discharge nurse asked him if he was the one she heard screaming (we had an enclosed room, btw)? He grinned, delighted with himself and nodded, "Yes!"

........................................................................................

This morning one of the stitches was missing, so we went back. The triage nurse this morning was apparently also there last night. "You were here around 7?"
"Um, yeah. We were...?"
"I heard the screaming."

:)

He's fine, they declined to restitch given how it looked.

Sunshine, lollipops and razor blades.

So CW was supposed to get up at 6:30 this morning and be ready to walk out the door by 8am - exactly what happens on any given school day (which starts tomorrow). I even set her alarm for her last night.

She didn't get up until 7, nor was she even presentable at 8. I apparently slept through her VERY long shower in my bathroom, a shower in which she attempted to shave for the first time. Yeah. The following conversation took place in chunks across the next hour or so after she told me.

"Mom, I shaved a little in the shower this morning."
*blink* "Okay, did you cut yourself?"
"Nope! I really only did my arms though. Well, and some of my legs."
"Don't shave your arms."
"But they have some long dark hairs on them!"
"DON'T. Shave. Your. Arms. It's just wrong. You're not a freaky competitive swimmer - don't shave your arms."
(Detour into explaining "drag" in the water, competitive swim meets and one guy's particular pair of practice purple paisley pantyhose.)
"Oh, and don't ever share razors. It's not a big deal that you used mine, but I'd rather you used those disposable ones I got while we were out in Michigan."
"Well, I kind of didn't use your razor."
*blink, frown* "Well then, HOW exactly did you shave?"
"I used the little things (points out the replacement heads for my razor in the little plastic dispensing case), I just held it with my fingers."
"Oh. Okay...anyway, I didn't start shaving my legs until I was about 10, so let's not start until then? But if you want to start this, then we can start waxing now, and in a few years, you won't HAVE any hair to shave. Sound good?"
"Wait. Will it hurt?"
"A little for the first few times, but then you'll get used to it."
"Okay...can we do my arms too?"
"Yes I suppose we could wax your arms too, but really, you don't have much hair there anyway..."

Now, before you tell me that she's growing up (and yes in fact she is a size 9 in shoes, and is currently somewhere between a 6 and an 8 in pants/skirts) and before I know it SG will be shaving, I must relate that while he and I were in the shower last week I looked down and discovered him shaving his face with my razor. Obviously, I grabbed it away from him, but then discovered to my delight that at some point the blade had come off of the razor handle and been replaced by someone other than me. How do I know this? Because the blades were on upside down - a peculiarity of this style of razor. I'm now thankful that I always had problems with a normal style razor twirling around in my hand and cutting me, and to Mom's/my coworkers Rose and Brenda for putting one of those in my college going-away gift basket. :) I've stuck with that style ever since.

Nate's been in the kitchen playing on Matt's computer while we're out here watching, "The Men Who Stare at Goats." We heard him crinkling something, and the garbage can top open and close, so we called him in to ask what he was doing. We *think* we figured out what he did, and Matt told him to go back and play on the computer.

"Yuck. It's dirty."
"What's Dirty? What's Yucky!?"
"Nuffing..!" Came back in a sing song voice.
Matt, looking panicked ran out to check his beloved computer's cleanliness (it's fine).

He came back in here, "I'm not sure if it's better or worse that he talks now."