Before I even begin, this is not – I repeat NOT – a birth story.  Just so ya know.

No, this is just the chain of events that happened today.

1. Max is reading.  Really, really reading.  It blows my mind and makes me breathe a little easier.  We are not failing!  Huzzah!  Anyway, when Mama Syd came in March, she brought fun Phonics books (“Nan has a pop.  Al wants the pop Nan has.”  Drawings right out of the sixties.  AWESOME.) and sheets for him and organized them in color coded folders.  It totally spoke to his hyper-organized heart.  Last week he wanted to do some “school” with Jac and was sent upstairs to retrieve a folder.  We heard a crash.  He came down, panic stricken about having broke Philip’s ‘math bowl.’ (long story – no need to get into it here.)  He was assured it was okay and Jac picked up the pieces and life went on.

2. Thursday, my BFF Angela brought me these flowers.  Amazingly gorgeous, they made my heart glad each time I saw them.  Or smelled them – they smell like spring in California.

3. My feet were soooooo swollen from sitting through 3 hours of films last night at the Banff (!!!!!!!) that they were still in rough shape today.  It didn’t take long for them to be utterly useless.  I was looking for an activity for the kiddos that would require me to move just a little bit and decided that we should rearrange the flowers into different vases as some of the blooms were looking a little sad.  The kids were very excited – for 15 seconds, anyway.  I should have known that the boys would be non-plussed.  But Tess, well Tess was all “Can I do it?  Can I do it? I can do it!”  And she did.  We made it through three vases with her doing some beautiful work.  Then I filled a very heavy vase with an awful lot of water for some BABIES BREATH.  It seemed like a good idea.  But within 30 seconds it was off the table and spilling it’s entire contents onto the floor.  THAT attracted the boys who did clean-up haz-mat style.  Max was so impressed the vase didn’t break, as was I.  We tried again, put flowers in nice places and moved towards reading a new book from Grandpa about swords (“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” – Max).  But first I thought it wise to throw out stems and cuttings from our “work.”  But wait.  The trash was full from our chores earlier in the morning.  As a rule, I don’t change the trash (see here), but I just wanted it done.  So I pulled the bag from the can and just as I was saying, “Max can you get me another trash bag?” I brushed the bag to push on the liner.  Something did NOT feel right.  My sentence changed abruptly to “Max can you tell dad I’m bleeding?”  Then I got woozy.

4. Jac was upstairs in a flash; I’m sure he thought I was having a baby in the kitchen.  I was a little emotional – this pregnancy has made me very squeamish around blood.  And this thing H-U-R-T.  “Ooookay.  Oooooh.  That’s deep.  It’s pretty deep.  You want to look at it?  I think you should look at it.”  Jac is a good nurse, really he is.  But the commentary I could have done without.  Though I didn’t want to, I did look and it was a bad cut.  We decided a home bandage job would suffice (Sara, Jocelyn and Mom – I see the doc tomorrow.  We’ll see what he says about it. THIS is why I wish you all lived on my street.) and Max and Jac got to work.  

5. Jac was trying to figure out what had transpired.  I explained what had happened and he surmised that the glass from the broken ‘math bowl’ was what got me.  He felt bad that he had not taken it to the trash.  Or changed the trash himself.  I told him it was okay, but thought “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”