Happy Birthday Kate!!!

We've had a fun and busy time lately and naughty me, I've neglected to post in honor of Kate's birthday last Friday.

(Fair warning: this blog includes a very looooong story, but it needed to be written somewhere, sometime.)

So -- about Kate:

Kate is a fantastic daughter and sister. She loves taking care of everyone -- including me! During my pregnancies with Lizzie and Sabrina she was so patient with the trouble I seemed to always have. She would try to hold my hair while I was throwing up and loved to rub lotion on my belly. My OBGYN even gave her one of his measuring tapes once and she would measure my belly religiously every day to "check the baby". Even though she is an irritable 7 year old now she still reflexively helps her sisters and takes care of them. Usually. ;)

When Kate was nearly 4 we had a freak car-related accident. The car was parked, but running, in the parking lot of Michael's work. We had dropped him off after lunch this particular afternoon and were waiting for him to check on something inside. I was standing by the side door talking to the girls to keep them busy. Michael's boss came out and invited us to come in and visit for a bit, so we were going to. I got the girls out of the van. Kate and Lizzie were standing just to the side of the back of the van; Kate holding Lizzie's hand so she wouldn't cross the street without Mommy. I took Sabrina (about 7 months old) out of her car seat and was holding her. Then I closed the side door and reached in and simply turned off the car.

know I did not touch the shift thingy at all, but the van just started to roll backwards down the slight hill. Lizzie was closest to the van, but apparently Kate pulled Lizzie across her away from the open door. Unfortunately this left Kate in front of the still-open driver's side door of the van. While I was holding Sabrina and pushing for all I was worth to slow the progress of the van and trying to reach the emergency brake, Kate was dragged in towards the tire. I got the van stopped and was thrown to the ground. I twisted while falling so I landed on my back so Sabrina had nothing more than the tiniest possible scrape on her baby toe.

Terrified of what I might find I clambered up to find a frightened Lizzie (almost 2) just standing up from where she had tripped and running towards me. Then I saw Kate. She had miraculously avoided going under the tire. Instead whe was being pulled up into the wheel well. When I got the van stopped her back was against the tire, one leg pulled all the way up between the tire and the curved wheel well. Her head was still against the hot asphalt. Just as I caught sight of her she started to pull herself out. It all happened so fast. I watched carefully while she picked herself up. I didn't want to help her too much -- I didn't want to risk injuring her further, and I wanted to make sure she could move herself. I was greatly relieved to see her gather herself out, stand up, and come over to me. Then I opened up the sliding door, set Sabrina in her car seat so she was safe, and sat to hug the other frightened girls.

By this time a few people had poked their heads out of neighboring offices to see if I needed help -- or an ambulance. Reflexively I send them all back to their work. I needed to get the girls calmed down and determine the extent of their injuries. Someone came out from Michael's office at that point and I asked them to get him quickly. Unfortunately he had no idea of what had happened so Michael finished up a few things before coming out. When he did, he wondered why I had moved the van! Then he asked what happened to Kate's shirt. I was cuddling her carefully, but hadn't checked her over yet. The back of her shirt was shredded mostly off. She wouldn't lift her left arm and her back across her sleft shoulder blade was.... well, missing the skin.

So we got back in the car. With the girls in their car seats I squished in next to Kate and kept up a constant conversation with her to try to help keep her calm and to try to keep an eye on her physical and emotional condition. As the shock wore off on her the pain got worse. We tried to stop at the closest place -- an instacare in town -- but they sent us straight back out to the hospital in Provo. On the way to UVRMC I called Mom on my cell phone and asked her to come meet us in the emergency room. When we got there we could not be 100% sure Kate hadn't been compressed by the tire, and we told the nurse at the front desk briefly what had happened. She told us to wait a second and disappeared quickly through the door.

On the other side of the door I now know just what happened -- the nurse took out "maybe, possibly being compressed" for "this little girl was driven over by our mini-van". Michael's sister Michelle was back to work at the back desk in the ER for the first time since her maternity leave. The nurse came back and told her to call in the pediatric trauma team or whatever they are called. She made the call out to the right people, thinking what a shame it was to have a little girl hurt. By then the nurse had bustled back out and collected Kate and Michael since he was carrying her. I was left standing in the waiting room with the two little girls and the fish.

I am so grateful that Michelle was there. Mom was on her way, but I was just stuck! Michelle was shocked to recognize her brother carrying her niece into the trauma room she had just called for. As a mother herself her first question was to ask him where I was. She came right out, gathered up the two girls from me, and sent me in to be with Michael and Kate. When I walked into the large crowded room I saw my little Kateus stripped down to her undies and a neck brace, terrified on a cold table with doctors, x-ray technicians, nurses, and life flight paramedics surrounding her. The second I walked in the room a woman came up to talk to me, introducing herself as a social worker. I wasnt' interested in chatting. She must have decided I hadn't done anything intentionally because she let me brush her off so I could go hold Kate's hand while they tried to put an IV into her foot.

She was so tough! Of everything they did the only time she cried was when they put in the IV. Pretty soon they determined that she was stable and the room cleared somewhat. The xray techs took xrays all over her. The nurses had to take the nail polish off her fingers -- we had painted her nails just the day before. Strange the things I remember.

By this time Mom had arrived. She popped in for just a second to let us know she was there. She collected the discarded shirt. I have it around here somewhere -- always intending to take a picture of it before throwing it away. She then went and kept the little girls company and helped them be happy and not so worried.

By the time they were scooting Kate down to get a CT scan I finally got Kate to talk a little. I got them to give her a blanket so she wasn't too cold. Things were much more calm by this point and the greatest fears seeemed to be calmed. After the CT scan the nurse had to clean the scrapes. Bless her heart she was very gentle. She did admit that with an adult she'd be scrubbing the abrasions with all her strength, but since she was so young the nurse was pretty much dabbing. They removed the worst of the dirt and applied plenty of goo to keep down the risk of infection before bandaging it carefully.

After all the xrays and CT scan and other tests were done a doctor came to talk to us. Kate had a probable fracture in her left elbow so they put a cast on that arm and a sling to hold it. To skip ahead a moment -- a few weeks later we took Kate to an orthopedic surgeon. He kept re-doing the xrays to make sure he didn't miss anything. She had every sign of having a fracture. Well, every sign except the important one: there was no actual fracture! I think it was about 3 weeks she had the cast on.

Kate had fairly extensive abrasions across her back and left arm. The last of the scabbing fell off in one week. When she gets tan you can barely see the outline of where the scrapes happened and she has a bit of scarring inside her left arm, but nothing you would notice unless you were looking for it.

The doctor finally came to remove the neck brace. He did so VERY carefully. He was amazed at how her neck seemed fine. He said the xrays showed a slightly enlarged gap between two of the vertebrae in her neck. She should have been holding her neck very stiffly and had major problems with major repairs needed. He said in every case he had ever seen or heard about there were major issues. She didn't seem to have any problems, though. He was a little confused, but in a good way.

I suppose you could say that Kate is our miracle child (in more than the one way, but that's the one I'm going to write about today). I am so grateful Kate is one of my daughters. She is such a joy and is so wonderful to others.

Get your Lemonaaaaaaaaade!!!!!

I FINALLY let the girls do their lemonade stand today.
We requested the lemonade stand through Sunkist.com several months ago as part of their "Take a Stand" project. They sent a free lemonade stand so the kids could set it up and then donate the money to a charity of their choice. Kate chose to donate the money to the Perpetual Education Fund to help educate people who would otherwise be without the opportunity. At rough count they earned just over $12.00 in an hour! Then we ran out of little plastic cups -- and we were so hot I wonder if the bottom of my bare feet got blistered :P

We went through nearly 6 quarts of lemonade. I do admit, however, that after a while the kid's consumption probably surpassed that of the customers. After all, it is about 98 degrees outside right now.

The kids took turns yelling "Get your lemonade!" in all sorts of ways. My favorite was the way Sabrina started it the second the stand was up. "We got your lemonade for you! Only ten cents!" It was great. What a natural ;)

Daddy brought in about half-dozen co-workers and bought a couple of rounds of drinks. Only here would that translate to two little plastic cups each of lemonade from his daughter's lemonade stand LOL!

Yes, today is also Kate's 7th birthday. I'll do a birthday post later. Right now the kids are waiting for me to go supervise swimming in the pool out back. Summer is calling! :)

Night-time Poetry

I know, I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath to see the rest of my pictures from Independence Day, but you'll have to allow a brief intermission.

Every night I sit in a rocking chair in the girls' room and read a short story or a chapter of a book to them while they settle down to go to sleep. Sometimes I'll even just tell a story or recite a little verse. There is one that is their all-time favorite. It is one that I remember my mom reciting to us from time to time when I was young. Her mother used to recite it to them when she was young. In fact, I remember my grandfather reciting it to us sometimes when we came into town to visit. The alliteration and rhythm of the verse is so soothing. Tonight the girls were pretty wired from an exciting day, but by the time I was done Sabrina and Lizzie were both snoozing comfortably and Kate didn't last much longer.

From 2007-05

The verse is recited rhythmically -- slowly and quietly -- starting with the first line, then the second line followed by the first, then third - second - first, etc. The same sort of way "The 12 Days of Christmas" goes.

I was curious tonight and did a quick search and found half-dozen variations, none the same as this generational rhyme:

One ox opening oysters
Two toads totally tired of trying to trot to Tudbury
Three tigers taking tea
Four fair furriers flying to France for fashion
Five fat friars fanning a fainting fly
Six Scotch sailors sighing to see Seville
Seven Spanish soldiers severally shooting squirrels
Eight English ensigns eagerly eating eggs
Nine nimble nights nicely nipping a nun
Ten tipsy tinkers trying to turn a tap
Eleven elegant elephants eating at Exeter Exchange
Twelve tumbling tumblers tippling topsy-turvy

Sleepy yet?

From 2008-12

The Middle

Southern "Not So Special" Olympics
3 Legged Race

Sack Race
Pie Eating Contest
The Infamous Contested Wheelbarrow Race
Waterballoon Toss

Family Obstacle Course

"Big Boy" Obstacle Course

Starting at the end

I dumped my pictures on Michael's computer halfway through the day, so I'll just post some pictures from the end of the day going backwards.

Fireworks are just so fun to photograph :) I love the ones form across the valley to city fireworks. I got the pictures "tweaked" so you can see the sillhouette of the mountains that were missed in the earlier posted picture.

Doing sparklers. I know there are too many pictures in one spot, but of course if you click on it you can see it larger. The collage is just such a convenient way to group pictures from particular events...

The kids LOVED the huge inflatable slide. The one of T. in the middle just says it all, LOL.

Where are the pictures?!?!

So it is now 4 days past Independence Day and I haven't posted a gajillion pictures. How did that happen! Well, truth of the matter is that half of my pictures are on Michael's laptop and I keep forgetting to retrieve the pictures from there. I suppose I could do it now, but his computer is turned off and put away. It would take AGES to haul it out, turn it on, log on... way too much work :P Instead, I'll try yet again to remember to get them off tomorrow. In the mean time, let's see if I can find one to share: