Rough Week!

Last week was definitely one rough week!

Starting things off first thing Monday morning, Maya awakened me about 5 a.m. saying that her Mom was calling to me and needed me.

I got up and could hear Mandy saying "Mom, come here. I need to show you something."

And in my mind, groggy still, I was thinking that this thing she needed to show me was NOT going to be some goofy video or silly picture and comments on Facebook!

I walked into the living room and there sat Mandy in the computer chair, with her right foot on the floor and a white bath towel wrapped around her foot. She slowly pulled the towel away from the top of her foot to show me what was on her mind.

And yes, I had to agree with her that she did need to show me something alright!

The towel was pretty blood-soaked by then and I could see a gash on the top of her foot that was the culprit. One glance and I told her, "Well, that's definitely gonna need some stitches!"

Seems that she had a slight run-in with our shower doors that morning. The one door has a tendency to come off the track -fairly frequently -and as she had stepped into the shower that morning and went to close the shower door, it came off the track completely, landing on the top of her foot and leaving this nice -NOT VERY -gash on the top of her foot.

Since she was supposed to be at work that morning to start at 6 a.m. -and obviously, a trip to the E.R. was not going to allow her to be at work -she first called her boss and then, she and I began to mull over how we were going to deal with getting the kids up and dressed and her to the e.r., get the stitches, get the kids dropped off late at school and back home again.

Eventually, she ended up calling a friend of ours here who, upon learning what had happened, told Mandy that he would be right over and he would take her to the E.R. so that eliminated the need to awaken both kids anyway.

That morning, as I went up to wake Kurtis up to get ready for school, praying the whole way up the steps that he would be full of a nice sunshine attitude and not the crabby appleton cranky little fellow he is some days, I found out in short order that good old Crabby Appleton was in his bed!

He was kicking and crying, yelling "NO! NO! No wake me up!" And, not being the most pleasant person on the pike when I first wake up, I could totally empathize with him.

I tried to cajole him a bit and sat down on the side of the bed as I started to stroke his back, only to have him thrash about a bit and with his arm outstretched towards me, he pushed at me and grumbled "Back off!"

"Back off?" This, from a six-year-old? Hmmm. Where the heck did you get that from, Boy?

I debated if I should tell him why I was waking him up and not his mother because sometimes, if he realizes she's not around, he throws a much larger hissy fit, but I got brave and very quietly told him I needed to have him get up and do it now because he was going to have to be extremely helpful to me then as his Mommy wasn't there but was over at the hospital because she hurt herself and had to go get stitches.

To my relief -and surprise too -he immediately sat straight up and with a very concerned attitude began to ask me what had happened to her and his whole demeanor changes -did a 360, he did -to being as nice as he possibly could be, quietly obeying what I told him we had to do and even helping me to get an outfit out for him to wear to school that day too!

I posted on my Facebook after he left in the van for school that he was little Mr. Sunshine then and I hoped the nice boy side would carry him through the day.

Unfortunately, about an hour later, I got a post back from his BSC saying Crabby Appleton had arrived on the van -not "Mr. Sunshine!" Rats! And pity his teacher and TSS that he lost the good attitude on the 6 mile trip from the house to the school.

And Mandy returned home about 11 a.m sporting 5 big old black stitches on her foot, a doctor's excuse not to work until Friday and also, finding out she didn't have any shoes available that would allow her to slide her now swollen foot into anyway!

The week passed by with other events that were more than a bit unpleasant too.

On Thursday, I learned that a cousin of mine on my Dad's side had heartbreaking news. One of her sons and his wife had their fourth child and son back on December 27th and sadly, the baby had been born with a debilitating issues of congenital heart problems. He had been in Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh since his birth and although he had had several procedures done, beginning when he was only one week old, his condition had worsened. He had been accepted the week before for the heart transplant list but sadly, he had died on Wednesday -when he was exactly two months old.

I can only imagine the heartache my cousin -his grandmother -was feeling as I've never lost a child or grandchild. I can only imagine the pain I would have if something were ever to happen to one of my grown children or to one of my grandchildren. Rather, I think I can only imagine that as the loss one would definitely feel, the unrelenting pain, the sorrow -something that I probably really can't imagine how shattering that would have to feel to endure that loss.

Saturday, I baked bread - yes, more Swedish Limpa Rye -so we had that with our beef pot roast for supper and we devoured one full loaf and a bit over 1/2 of a second loaf during that meal! My older daughter, her fiance and my older grandson were all here for supper as well as Jeff and his two little girls plus Mandy, the kids and me -so really, 1 1/2 loaves of bread with 10 people eating that stuff really isn't all that much food eaten though.

Older daughter's fiance and Mandy worked together to take down the sliding glass doors to the tub and he installed a nice shower curtain rod for Mandy to hang a liner curtain and shower curtain up there now. Looks pretty enough but I do not particularly like shower curtains mostly because there always tends o be a lot of excess water that escapes and lands on the floor outside of the tub -at least in my experience it's always worked that way. Guess we'll all just have to practice trying to keep the water in the tub where it belongs a bit more diligently now!

Last week, I did manage to knit a hooded baby sweater for Little Miss Lola -my beautiful one-month-old great-granddaughter and also, a pair of baby socks too that turned out quite nice for her. Now, I'm working on crocheting a baby blanket for her and have loads of yarn as well as many patterns I can work with to make lots and lots of neat little things now for her. Most likely though there will be a whole lot of bad words floating around the air as I rip out rows and rows of stitches since I am not all that good at the knitting things or crochet either but hopefully, I'll manage to get a few more creations done that are decent enough to be usable!

Time now for me to get on the stick and start getting things for supper organized here and hopefully, also to squeeze in a brief nap too!

Still have to walk the dog and that, I'm not looking forward to doing because baby, it is really cold outside here today!

Peace!