It is simple math that four children create more chances for disaster than two children. Today was one of those days. The 8-year-old had forgotten he had math homework (or more accurately, elected not to do it) until I got home at 9 P.M. on Thursday. So I spent Friday morning at breakfast checking it while dealing with the usual circus of lunch-making, dismissal note-writing and the like. The 6-year-old was complaining of feeling bad, but he has been doing that a lot. I was not sure if it was related to trouble on the bus the previous day when I got a note that he and his buddies had been acting up (well, playing a shooting game, which in this day and age gets attention fast — but the more salient point is that they refused to stop when told to do so).
Our Friday sitter came and I got the boys out to the bus stop while she took the baby and got the 4-year-old ready for school. Then I came back in and she told me we had an issue.
Indeed, the baby had fallen into the corner of the 4-year-old’s dresser and got a small but quite deep cut on his forehead. After some conferring, I elected to take him to a local urgent care clinic. The existence of this clinic was a happy discovery, as I am just tired of the local ER. The doctor on duty glued it and bandaged it and we were on our merry way again in less than 45 minutes.
So all seemed to be going well. I worked for 2 hours before going to pick the 4-year-old up at school. We came home and started lunch when I realized my phone was ringing.
Yup, it was the 6-year-old’s morning enrichment program (we only have half-day kindergarten around here) saying he had thrown up. The 4-year-old was distraught that I was leaving, so I took her with me to go get him (feeling very happy we had the Friday sitter who could stay with the sleeping baby — all of this would have been much worse if I had to wake him up from his nap). Wise in the ways of the world now, I took a garbage bag with me in the car.
Sure enough, the 6-year-old continued throwing up during the drive home. I think the 4-year-old was weighing whether this additional mommy time was worth the cost. Frequent readers will notice the odd parallels to the day two weeks ago when my daughter fell out of her bed and needed stitches and the 8-year-old came home sick with a stomach bug. Same mix of problems, only an entirely different set of kids!
Here is hoping for a healthier weekend.
Photo: Here comes trouble!
oh man! what a day!
Wishing your kids a speedy recovery, and a calmer weekend.
You have earned some wine this weekend!
Are you running the Broad Street run this weekend?
Oh, Laura, why am I laughing? It’s the bit about your daughter wondering if it was worth the extra mommy time! Hope no one else gets sick or needs stitiches or glue!
I’ve had my fair share of these types of days with 4 kids:). Days like this are memorable and in hindsight can be amusing to reminice at over the hilarity of the events that took place. And since you’ve recorded this in a blog post you’ll be able to read this in 10 years and have a good chuckle:). Hope you’re weekend turns out well.
Oh no! Congrats on getting through it sane enough to write coherently about it, and hope everyone (including you!) will recover quickly.