Today while reading Facebook, a friend posted a story about getting a call from her child’s school. One of her older kids had gotten sick at school, so while hurrying to get to the school one of the younger ones took it upon herself to use an ink pad for makeup.
This reminded me of a very similar story of my own.
About 5 years ago on one snowy Christmas vacation, my kids spent the entire vacation sledding! We have a very good sledding hill located right behind grandma and grandpa’s house in the Milk Cow Pasture. It catches all the snow on the back side when we get a Northwest wind, and if you are from around here you know that we get those quite often. If you point your sled head straight east or southeast, you’re usually pretty safe. The hill has a nice slope and you usually come to a stop before you get to the bottom. If you go off the hill to the North, it’s usually a bumpy ride. Snow doesn’t stick much and the sage brush is hard on your rear end. The South Side is no good!!! It’s steep and would be good fast sledding if there wasn’t a row of continuous fence right at the bottom. Those who don’t know what continuous fencing is it is ¾ inch solid steel fencing used for corals and arenas. It’s very unforgiving. Just ask TB!
TB was 5, a kindergartener; she loved to sled with her sisters! After lunch one afternoon we all headed out to do a little sledding. I made a couple trips down the hill with the kids, while at the bottom I turned to look up to the top. There I saw TB, setting up her sled to go down the south side of the hill. She lined it out jumped on head first on her tummy and there was nothing I could do, but watch! She was gaining speed as the words “NOOOO” where coming out of my mouth. I watched as the sled and the little blonde baby it was carrying crashed in to the steel continuous fencing. I ran through the snow as she lay unmoving on the sled. As I got to her and rolled her over, her eyes rolled into the back of her head! I yelled for help, KJ ran to get Grandma, we took her into the house as quickly as we could. She didn’t know where she was at or who we were, so we started to make calls to our local clinic, the closest medical facility. We were advised to take her to the nearest hospital.
The nearest hospital is 60 miles away, and it was already turning dark. Me, a slight bit panicky, distracted and stressed out I started to get the other kids ready to go to Grandma’s house, knowing we wouldn’t be returning that night or it would be late if we did.
That was all 2 year old BR needed! A family member had just given all of the girls paint by number posters for Christmas. So while I was distracted with the 5 year old with a concussion the 2 year old broke into the paint by number and painted every piece of accessible skin on her extremities. She even pulled up her sleeves and pant legs to broaden her canvas. She was covered in mostly green that I remember, but all I could see was RED!!! Her father narrowly saved her life, scooping her up and running her to the bath and cleaning her up! Possibly that was a typical 2 year old behavior, but now looking back, that was just the one of many chapters in the book I will one day write titled…”Why My Hair Turned Gray!”
TB made it to the Hospital, thanks to dad’s quick thinking we didn’t have to take her baby sister too. The cop who pulled us over for speeding didn’t think much of his quick driving, but when he saw me with a 5 year old in my lap both of us covered in puke, he was kind enough to not give him a ticket and let us be on our way. After a CAT scan and a night in the hospital, TB was put on sledding probation. In her opinion this ruined the rest of her Christmas Vacation. After returning from the hospital, Great Grandpa, and her Great Aunt shared stories about wrecks they had sledding off the South side of that hill too. Well I can tell you everybody in this generation has learned their lesson! 1. NO SLEDDING ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE HILL IN MILK COW PASTURE! 2. BODY PAINT BY NUMBER OR ANY OTHER PAINT BY NUMBER PROJECTS ARE PROHIBITED, ESPECIALLY DURING A CRISIS.
