The Crash and Aspirations

Okay, so apparently the knocking on wood thing IS only a superstition. No truth to it as I see it. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see yesterday's post below...)Last night after finishing my last blog and wondering if I had indeed jinxed myself by saying we'd had an "uneventful" day, I was shaken back into the reality of what is our "normal" life. Uneventful = not normal! We'd finished dinner and decided to go outside and let the girls play in the driveway and on the sidewalk in front of our house. (Since we have no yard this is their only option for playing outside other than swimming.) Taylor has been doing really well riding her bike without training wheels and she was practicing by riding up and down the sidewalk. Emma was riding her tricycle on the sidewalk too. It hasn't been a danger in the past because Taylor has only been able to go 10 feet or so at a time without putting her feet down and up until now Emma has never been in her way. Until last night. Taylor was doing great on her bike, actually going from one neighbor's driveway, past ours and turning around in the other neighbors driveway. She was a little wobbly but managed to keep her balance. You gotta know that when Taylor & Emma ride their bikes or scooters they're like little Evel Knievels. There is no speed too fast or too dangerous. There is only one speed and that's as fast as they can scoot or pedal. So anyway, Emma was on her trike coming down the sidewalk as hard and fast as her little stick legs could go. Meanwhile, Taylor is coming down the sidewalk from the other direction looking like a deer in headlights and a little more out of control and wobbly than usual. They are headed right for one another and neither of them are stopping or heaven forbid slowing down. Emma, as I imagine it, probably saw the look on Taylor's face and decided that she'd better stop right before Taylor got ready to pass her by. She stops but Taylor is unable to stop or control her bike and her handlebar crashed right into Emma's mouth! Taylor and her bike fall into the grass on the other side of the sidewalk and Emma is standing there screaming and in shock. Nathan and I had already started walking that way when we saw that Taylor wasn't stopping her bike and was going to try to ride past her. By the time I got to Emma, she has blood running out of her mouth and down her chin and both of her hands are covered in blood. Nathan is beginning to freak out at this point, as he usually does when he sees one of them get hurt...worse if there's blood involved. As much as I'd like to scream "Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!" and freak out myself, I have to stay calm to keep him and the kids from going ballistic. I gave him a calm look and said "She's okay" and then I scooped Emma up and ran her into the house where I could better assess the damage and try to keep any more blood from dripping on her cute little Gap dress (darn it!). Once I cleaned up her mouth a little I could see that she had busted her bottom lip in two places and also her top lip. I cleaned those place up but there was still blood coming out of her mouth so I lifted her top lip and was able to see the real damage. The handlebar had hit her gums just above her front two teeth. Her gums had been pushed up on one side and it had cut a gash across them too. They finally stopped bleeding after a couple minutes and she had stopped crying. As soon as I got her down from the cabinet she said "I won to go back outside again and pway! Can we, can we, can we?" So I gave her some Motrin and we went back outside to ride bikes again. She is the toughest little booger I know! Mouth swollen and lips blown up like balloons she's off again, riding as hard as she can. Poor Taylor was so worried about her. She kept asking if she was going to be okay and if it was her fault. She had to have just as many hugs as Emma did. After she saw that she was going to be okay, it was no big deal...yesterday's news.
This morning Emma's lips and gums were still swollen a little bit but she felt good. I doped her up and sent her off to school. -that sounded really bad - let me rephrase. I assessed her pain level, saw that she was feeling optimal but just as a precautionary measure I gave her a little Motrin. She went to school and had a great day!

One more thing before I go...I don't think I told this yet but the other day Emma informed me that she knows what she wants to be when she grows up...a butterfly. Taylor used to say that she wanted to be vet, but she has changed her mind now. Moved on to bigger and better things. Now she wants to be an animal cop. ;-) You Go Girls!