Last night did not play out the way any of us planned, but I learned a few things about my girls.

1. Beth is the typical oldest child. Responsible, level-headed, practical.

2. Laura will never be an ER nurse or paramedic. Empathy is way too deeply embedded to not come to the forefront in a crisis.

3. Alice lives in the moment like most little kids and is hanging onto her childish ways longer than her sisters.

We have been trying to teach the girls to do the dishes on every night that they are home and not rushing off to some activity. It's been a long process because they are painfully slow. It's not at all like my memories of washing dishes with my sisters, singing Sunday School songs and laughing. I'm sure that's an inaccurate memory anyway. We probably fought the system in the same way my girls do.

Alice is on "clear the table and put away the dry dishes" duty this month. She's very slow and the plates are big and heavy for her. I promised to read aloud to them if they finished in 15 minutes so they were rushing a bit.

While I played the piano to drown out their squabbles, I heard a loud crash and crying. I didn't see what had happened but Laura was loudly crying and Alice too. It was easy to see the pile of plates on the floor, but it wasn't clear who was hurt or if the loud sound had just scared them (I don't think they are afraid of me yellling at them for breaking dishes).

It turned out Alice had cut her foot and needed the bleeding stopped, but Laura needed more consoling. Beth calmly found the bandaids and got pants and socks for Alice (she was wearing a gauzy dress as part of a previous game that was clearly not suitable for a -30 drive to emergency). I had to leave a crying Laura in Beth's care while Alice and I drove for help.

I opted for a MediCentre instead of emergency because even a bleeding child doesn't always get precedence over car accident victims or a loudly drunk bleeding man and the like. Playing up the "she's bleeding into her boot" story, we got in pretty quickly.

I've never had stitches, nor had Alice and she was very afraid of the freezing ("It'll be SO COLD") and the sewing on her foot. I must say that the needle in the non-fleshy top of her foot brought back awful memories of being with Beth once as nurses tried to find a vein on her dehydrated baby body long ago. This time I didn't have Yvon to deal with it while I ran away.

Once the freezing was in, they gave her three stitches and it went something like this.

"Let me know if you can feel anyth...ICANFEELICANFEELICANFEEL...Can you still feel anyth...ICANFEELICANFEELICANFEEL...Okay, now we'll just put the bandage on...Did you do anything yet?"

Obviously she could not actually feel her foot while they stitched it up. They threw her icky sock away and we went home, Alice chattering happily in the back about being the third person in Grade 2 who's had stitches and isn't it good that her talent show entry didn't involve her feet?

As I locked the car door at home, I heard my knee pop. Oh great. It hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes and I was seriously not sure how I was going to walk to the house. Generally when one knee goes, the other does some sort of compensation move and they both have trouble bearing weight. Clearly I couldn't stay outside in the cold though. Even with her own injured foot, sweet Alice stepped up to the plate and offered her arm. Not actually helpful as we climbed the snow pile between the van and our house, but we made it.

Beth had spent much of the time at home trying to ease Laura's worries and clean up some of the broken dishes. Then she promptly helped me into bed and settled me with two hot wheat bags to try to get the swelling down in my knees. Of all my children, she's the one you want around in a crisis. Laura is great for the words of encouragement after the fact and lots of hugs and kisses, but in the moment I think she feels the pain as much as the injured person.

Today I'm hobbling around painfully, and I will follow up this time with physio and try to get my weight down a bit. I've done it before and I can do it again and clearly my knees are having trouble dealing.

Possible Cause

This is the possible cause of my current pain.

Lovely, isn't it? I'm almost tempted to sit in those lawn chairs and enjoy the sunshine.

Humph.

This is a bit misleading though. The kids spent a lot of time digging and piling snow in the centre. After a few days a crust formed on the top and they dug an igloo out of it. This is something I would never have thought of. After yesterday's snowfall the entrance is almost invisible now. It'll have to be dug out again.

Misleading or not, it's still mighty deep and I helped shovel a bit of it yesterday.

These piles look more realistic than the level of snow on the garage roof, but both are true.

Enough already!!

Whatever your normal is

This is how I feel today.

And I had a bunch of things to do on my list, including preparing for yet another birthday. Sorry, Alice! I had a lot planned but it's tough to function like this.

"Get back to normal. Whatever your normal is." Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Life in Comparison

It's a pity I do this, but I do. I live my life in comparison to others. Not so much in terms of "keeping up with the Joneses" because I'm not really very materialistic, but I do that a bit too. However, look at this.


I took this picture a few minutes ago. There are days when I feel overweight based on the fact that I've gained 40-45 pounds since I got married 16 years ago. And on the fact that my knees and back do have some problems and the doctor has suggested that less weight on them would help. And I don't think he meant that I should stop carrying Alice or hauling my own groceries.

But when I look at this picture I don't feel like I should apply to be the next Biggest Loser.

It's when I go shopping that I feel most overweight. I hate the plus-size section. I'd love to be a happy size 16. For many of you that would be huge, but that leads me to the next picture.


I'm a freakin' fat giant!! And this is actually how all of you must see me. Only I see me alone. Everyone else in the world sees me beside other normal people. We do see each other in relation to the world around us. And the world around me is much, much smaller than I am.

In the future, all pictures of me must be taken alone, or beside mountains and tall trees. I either have to lose some weight or live a life of unbroken illusion, the illusion that I too am normal. Sigh...

It is Well

For the longest time this winter was too cold to get outside and do anything with the kids.

Then it warmed up a bit and I managed to go skating a few times with them. Every year I get out a few times and I must say that I'm not very comfortable on skates. It's a lot of weight to balance on two thin blades and two little ankles. And I haven't really skated much since the hockey players took over our rink as a kid.

Anyway, one lovely Sunday I fell on my tailbone (remember the bruised butt post?) and the next weekend I landed on both knees in an icy pile of snow on the side of the rink. My tailbone seems to be slowly getting better, but one knee...not so much.

I'm not looking for a diagnosis here. I can't see anything wrong in my xray and I'll have to wait for the bone scan results as well.

As I watched the bone scan revealing itself on the computer screen today, I started to marvel about how well and detailed our bodies are designed. It's amazing that God would piece together all those little bones and make them function as a complete unit. And to make my pieces different than yours, unique to me alone. Not only that, but there is grand plan for each of my bones - how they will age and degenerate and that plan is unique to me as well.

The degenating part isn't great, I know. There were bright spots along my spine and in my feet that showed arthritis and my tailbone was glowing brighter than anywhere else. That doesn't worry me really. The bone scan was to investigate my knee. But if God will go to those lengths to plan my physical structure, how much more does He care about what the scan doesn't pick up -- my soul?

I got into the van and this song was playing on my CD player.

It Is Well With My Soul

All is going to be just fine. My knee doesn't really matter in the Grand Scheme.