Monday, September 3, 2012

Laboring, Injuring, Shopping, and Losing

It's Labor Day and I am...laboring.  I've got a to-do list a mile long.  Writing on my blog was at the top of my list!

It's fall.  I remember last year thinking if I survived fall, it would be a miracle.  I was so overwhelmed with all our normal fall activities, plus I had a bucket load of things to do in preparation for starting our PS-MAPP classes that Oct.  I'm thinking the same thing about this fall, even though we don't have classes to take.  We are needing to go through the renewal process for our license, though, so there will be a certain amount of work that needs to be done for that.

And in the fall is --football season!  Will has had two games so far and I have really enjoyed them.  He is playing the entire game and he is really good!  It was amazing to me at the first game when he trotted out onto the field and I realized that he's one of the "big" guys now!  All those other years he had teammates that were a good head or more taller than him and suddenly, Will is the one towering over his teammates.  I'm trying not to be sniffly about this being his last season.  Next year he'll be onto bigger and better things, but there's just something about that senior year...

Right now, though, Will is out of commission.  He ended up getting a concussion in the last play of Friday's game.  And we missed it - we are such bad parents!  They were losing pretty bad and were down to the last minute of the game.  There was no hope.  We had 5 kids we needed to get to bed so we went ahead and folded up our chairs and headed back to the van.  Unbeknownst to us, Will had just been tackled, stumbled over to the sidelines, and couldn't talk when he coaches asked him if he needed to sit down.  We got the phone call just as we pulled into our driveway.  I hurried back to the school and Will sat on a chair, glassy-eyed, dazed, and with absolutely no memory of being hit.  A couple of his coaches were there and explained to me the concussion policy (5 days of  being symptom-free, plus a doctor's written release).  The principal came up to me and put his arm on my shoulder - such a nice guy.  He strongly encouraged me to take Will to the ER, so I did.

I took him up to Blank because I am not real confident in Knoxville's ER.  Will just out of it the whole time.  We got into triage and the nurse was checking his vitals.  She took his blood pressure.  I saw her look at the screen, and then look again.  Then she quickly left the room and returned with a wheelchair.  She asked me to unhook Will from his cuff, sat him the chair, burst through the ER doors, and hollered, "I need a room, NOW!"  I didn't know what was going on as I trailed behind.  The next thing I know, a bunch of people are bustling around Will as they lay him down and getting an iv ready.  What had happened was that his blood pressure had plummeted and the nurse thought he was about to faint.  But then once they got him laying down the blood pressure came back up and they didn't have to put the iv in after all.  Whew!

Will definitely got a good concussion.  The dr. told me that this time of year, they refer to Friday nights in the ER as "Football Friday Nights" because of all the injured players they treat.  We didn't get home until almost 2am.  While I had been at the game, I was so tired from my busy day and my allergy pills and had been thinking that I couldn't wait to go to bed!  That plan obviously got delayed.

So, Will spent the weekend popping Tylenol, sleeping, and watching football on the tv.  He's doing better but he says that it still feels like his brain and body are disconnected.  Paul mentioned to his mom last night that Will had gotten a concussion.  The next thing we knew his dad called and demanded that we pull Will from football.  Paul just ignored him, but laughed and told Will, "Your grandpa says you have to quit football!"  Give me a break...

That wasn't our only ER trip this weekend.  Early Sat. evening I was in the kitchen and Ben stumbled in from outdoors, dripping blood from his chin, and asking for a band-aid.  He had fallen and smashed his chin on the swimming pool pump.  I looked at his chin and realized he was going to need more than a band-aid.  So, off to the ER we went.  This time I did go to Knoxville.  I don't know if I should have, but it is closer and Ben wasn't in any danger of dying, so that's what I did.  I wasn't even sure if they would stitch him, but the wound did look kind of deep.  We were there a long time, too, because they were busy.  They're never busy!  But I guess a lot of people were out having fun on Labor Day weekend and got hurt.  As it turned out, they said they couldn't stitch Ben's chin because he had torn off a triangle section of skin in the middle and there was now nothing to stitch to.  If it had not been for that, they said they definitely would have given him a stitch or two.  So, two band-aids later, we were on our way home.  I could have done that at home!  Hopefully, that's the end of our hospital visits for awhile!

Paul started digging out the basement last Wed.  It's actually gone very well.  Poor guy - he struggled around Will's school schedule last week,only having him help in the mornings.  He was really counting on having Will's help over the weekend.  But then Will's noggin got knocked and that was the end of that.  But he's got it all dug out now, a beam stuck through so the house doesn't collapse, and is about to pour footings.  Next week he hopes to be laying blocks.  I'm trying to close my eyes to the mess.  I have no front porch anymore and half my deck has been dismantled.  I HATE remodeling/adding on with a passion.  A big passion.

I bought a new vacuum last week.  Our thousand dollar lifetime guarantee Tri-star died and we found out the lifetime guarantee wasn't all that much of a guarantee anyway.  I never cared for it anyway.  It was a canister vacuum and way too heavy.  So, upon recommendations from my Facebook friends, I bought a Shark Lift-Away.  I love this thing!  The suction is amazing, it only weighs 12 lbs, and it cost under $200!  The best thing, I think is, and I didn't realize this until after I bought it, is that I can use it in place of a broom.  It works just as well on hard surfaces as it does on carpet.

I went jean shopping Sat.  I had to take the girls, but they were amazingly well-behaved.  Shopping for blue jeans is about as much fun as shopping for bras - blech.  I don't like jeans that bunch up at the ankles because they are too long, I don't want to pay $100 for a pair of jeans, I wanted to find something that had interesting pockets to add visual width (I have a very flat butt), and they needed to suck in my tummy, sit near my waist (without giving me a muffin top), and not be skinny jeans!  That's not too much to ask, is it?  I have lost so much weight since spring that my jeans from last year won't fit anymore.  I had a really good Younkers coupon so I went there and I ended up buying there, even though I did check out Kohls and Penneys, too.  I found what I wanted right away, which was amazing.  But they were a little long.  So, after thinking long and hard, I decided to have them tailored (for an additional $40 - ugh).  I guess if I have two pairs of jeans that fit well and are everything I wanted then it will be worth it, considering that's all I wear from Oct. through April.  I just hope I don't lose any more weight, otherwise I may have to get them tailored around the waist, too!

Speaking of weight loss - I had a dream last night that my scale was broken.  I had not actually lost a pound but only thought I had because of the scale.  Awful!  Those of you that know me know my weight has gone up and down since Sam's birth.  It's actually annoying because it requires buying two sizes of clothing because ill-fitting clothing drives me nuts.  I suspect my loss this time comes from stopping my migraine medication and just the stress of this summer.  I am a bit shocked that I have lost 16 lbs, though, because I am not exercising and I am eating all the same junk I normally do.  I don't like how my bones stick out on my chest though - I think I look emaciated.  I do like the loss of weight around my middle and in my face though - nothing like having a double chin to ruin a good picture!  Now if I could just do something about my upper arms...

I'm off to Ladies Retreat this weekend.  It's been 3 years since I last went, so I am really looking forward to this trip.  Actually, I'd probably be happy to go sit in a damp, dark cell if it meant there was nobody calling me, "Mom" or asking for something for two whole days...

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