Now please note: the two things listed in the title, have very little to do with each other, except when it has to do with my children. Read On—- Last weekend, while Christopher was out of town, my sister Amy saved my sanity. Not because the ratio of children to adult was exhausting, but because of the adventurous nature of children–especially Tucker.
Now before you read on, please watch this:
Yep. 5 Dangerous Things That You Should Let Your Children Do.
A few months ago Toph showed me this video, I found it interesting and pulled a few things from it…And I would like to think that, Tucker is going to be more confident, aware child because he is so adventurous, and I allow him (with in limits) to do this. So with that said, I want to write down what happened this last weekend, the fear I felt, and then the relief that I felt knowing that my child was going to be okay.
Friday after night, after helping some neighbors, Tucker proceeded home and immediately went to the trees. This is where he likes to be lately. I love the quote from the presentation, “Kids are always going to figure out how to do the most dangerous things they can, with whatever they are given.” That sums my Tucker up perfectly.
While in the tree he somehow lost his balance sending him falling out, head first, and therefore landing on his head. On the Cement Curbing. I heard a loud noise. I was an arms length away, trimming the tree and was there within seconds.
Having heard the noise. I was afraid it was his neck. Seeing him fall down on his head, it scared me. The wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn’ t move for a few seconds. Again, panic shot through my body. But after a few seconds, he caught his breath and the screaming and tears came out freely.
Luckily our neighbor is engaged to an EMT (or else we would have been to the ER for the second time in a little under a week), he came over looked him over, and since there was no blood coming out of the ears, eyes, nose and his eyes were dilating properly, he told me to wake him up every few hours that night, and watch for signs of concussion. If the symptoms were to occur, what was I going to do with Truman while I rushed to the ER in the middle of the night? I could take him with me….
Christopher was in Connecticut, my parents were in Hawaii, then I knew what to do. I knew Amy, my sister, would come down and help me. She has helped us in 3 other previous ER visits. Which she did this time too.
Amy rushed down to our house, and by that time the ice pack on the back of Tuckers head had releaved the swelling goose egg (That literally was the size of a goose egg!) to a much smaller egg, and he was very drowsy (normal again with a head trauma).
He went to sleep, and Amy helped me to wake him up every few hours through the night, and as you can now see, she helped save my sanity. Thanks again Amy, you’re the best, and I’m so blessed to be your sister.
And Tucker? Even though it’s been a week, he still has a little bump on his head, other than that, shows no signs of the ‘trauma’.
And as said in the video, I am hoping that this experience will have taught him more about the world around him. Gravity maybe?
Category: Emily
Tucker could do ‘projects’ constantly. This week he made himself a scripture bag for himself.
He designed it, cut the letters out, and sewed them on by hand, all by himself. I just was the sewing machine operator, and needle puller througher (sewing by hand through levi material is hard for a five year old.) I love his little creative mind.
-About Pete and how long he lived, and everything that goes with him…
-How bad I hate the smell of fish?
-And how looking at a dirty fish tank gives me the chills?
-How for some reason, in a child’s mind, putting fish flakes in the tank is the greatest thing ever, and gets requested at least 15 times a day by each child?
Did I forget:
-How having a pet makes children feel responsible and happy?
-About the smiles that come from fish that swim around, and do ‘tricks’ like swimming through the tunnel?
-How calmly and quietly kids can sit by a fish tank and just watch?
-The joy of pets?
Yes I did. For better or for worse. 🙂
Introducing Pete (Trumans new fish) He likes to hid under the filter and behind the shell, making it hard to get pics:
And Water (Tuckers fish):
I am choosing now not to forget these happy faces:
w!
I love the changing of seasons. I especially love when it get warmer!!! Spring is a wonderful magical fun time of year. And if that is not enough, here are some other reasons why I love spring…
Tulips (brought by my sweet handsome hubba), aren’t they beautiful! I have looked at them 100’s of times every day, and just LOVE them.
Can you see out to our backyard to the magical budding of our trees?
Yeah, I can too! My wonderful neighbor Jamie and I washed the outside of all of our windows this week. (Another reason I love spring, the neighbors start resurfacing, and we get to have regular contact again!)
The boys play hard outside, and fall to sleep quickly, because they are so exhausted!
(On Monday we got the stitches removed from Tuck’s head, it is healing up nicely!)
I do love spring…
A new trailer that for Wall-e, in case any one else is (or has children) who are robot obsessed. My boys have watched it three times already…
Still can’t wait for it to come out!
This last weekend, the kids were at the Greene’s playing with there cousins, and it was so refreshing to spend the day in the back yard, enjoying the spring weather, getting the garden ready, working hard, and most especially being with my husband. I can’t even tell you how wonderful it is to get so much done, in an uninterrupted block of time…the word ‘productive’, doesn’t begin to explain how much we got done!
Because of this weekend, Tonight, we got the first item in our garden planted. Sugar Snap Peas.
As well as get some seeds planted, to keep inside, and hopefully start some seedlings, until the frost free date, when it is safe to plant outside!!
Hopefully this is a good start to a productive garden!
Kids?
I think so! Cooking and decoration cookies included.
(Tuckers head looks so sore, all yellow and bruised!)
Yummy, yummy sugar cookies. Cute, cute boys.
Friday Afternoon, we spent the afternoon (after lunch) at the Children’s Museum with Grams. It was crazy busy there, but of course the boys still had a good time.
It is so fun to watch the boys as they always play differently with things,and everytime we are there they do things differently, play with the same objects in different ways.
Here is them working together, Tucker would unload the ‘bricks’ into Trumans wagon,
Truman would haul them away, emptying them down the slide
Then return for a fill up…
Tru found some work gloves, and decided to feed the horse hay. He hauled a few bales over to the horse
Our everytime shot on the motorcycle (I only took one pic, and his eyes are closed):
They were able to play around with most of the things they wanted to, and at the end Grams bought them a new goo ball toy.
Here are the boys playing with them in the car (it kept them quite happy as we drove), look at Tucks concentration—
Truman just giggled every time he squeezed it…
It is nice to be able to spend days together with Grams! We love you!
Friday afternoon we had a memorable lunch with daddy.
One thing I miss, since Toph has relocated to SLC, is our frequent lunches. When he worked just down the street, literally 4 minutes away, it was easy to get to him, with little planning. Now he is nearly 45 minutes away, our lunches are not as frequent, but let me tell you, they are a lot better in quality… I present our lunch, courtesy of the hard workers in the Church Cafeteria.
It was fate that we should have lunch there that day, you see they were serving Sausage and Sauerkraut. One of my favorite meals.
Truman himself choose out a “dog-dog”,
And of course, Tucker’s obvious choice was a meat and cheese sandwich. In his opinion, it’s the climax of all foods.
Let me state some of the reasons it was so memorable. Yes the food was delicious, but that’s not the only reason.
Every Friday, the cafeteria says that if you guess the correct weight/price of your icecream, you get it free. So, of course we got two of them, and I had no idea how much things weigh, so I left that to Toph. And let me tell you, I am married to the man who apparently has an hidden talent. He has won two weeks in a row. I was there, and witnessed it with my own eyes, and heard them ring the little bell. My husband is a champion. 🙂
The next reason it was so memorable was because of the things Tucker said. I don’t think I have laughed this hard in a long time.
The first thing he said just caught me off guard. We sat in a little alcove type area, where they have pictures of the First Presidency, as well as the Quorum of the Twelves Apostles pictures up. We looked, and noticed they had made the changes that had happened at conference, but the new Apostles pictures had not been put up yet. Tucker looked at them, and noticed there was not 12. He leaned over to me, in kind of quiet voice said. “Mom, I know why their pictures are not all up. Remember that one, who sold Jesus? (Meaning Judas Iscariot), I bet they took his picture down.” We might need to cover that Modern day Prophets and Apostles topic again!
The next thing he said was so funny, that Topher and I couldn’t stop laughing to tell him to speak quietly. (Actually, I kind of giggle while I am writing this). First let me preface this statement with my opinion: Kids have a different view of the world and people than we do. It is our jobs as parents to try to teach them how to act appropriately in public settings, and I am afraid, I didn’t do very good with this one.
Tuck: Dad did you see that guy?
Toph: Which guy Tuck?
Tuck: That guy who just went past. He had bum on his head.
Toph: I didn’t, but I wish I did, (kind of chuckling).
Tuck: Yeah, he went right around that corner.
Toph: Oh? (Still chuckling, trying not to laugh hard)
We continue eating, Toph and I are looking at each other from across the table, mouthing the words ‘bum on his head’, and trying not to laugh about this phrase, when Tucker looks up from his food, and spys the man again.
Tuck: (In a louder voice now) Look there he is, the guy with the bum head.
I admit. I couldn’t get it under control. I giggled like a silly school girl, so much so that I couldn’t tell my son to speak quietly. But if you would’ve seen this man, with a roll of neck fat underneath his bald head, Tucker’s description was a good one. Luckily, the man was far enough away I don’t think he heard him. Still, another topic to be covered. Speaking quietly, while appreciating peoples diversity. So overall, you can see why Lunch dates are definitely good times with dad.
(Do you love the goggles on his head while he sleeps? Funny boy!) So I forgot about this phase where dreams are reality in their little minds, and poor Truman cannot differentiate between the two of them. Luckily for us, we have not had too many wake up screaming in the night, nightmares; but it has been interesting to listen to Trumans comments over the past few days. He has said a couple of things, that I know he believes that are obviously dreams, here are my favorites.
1–We were driving in our car early one morning, when Truman said, Hurray, there is not a big hole in the car, daddy fixed it! Yeah for daddy.
2–Truman woke up and had eaten breakfast before Tucker had awoken. When Tucker came up the stairs, he said, “Tucker’s alive! He fell in hole, and then in a mud, and then in a tree, but now he is alive! Hurray!”
The other thing that cracks me up is somehow we have gotten in a silly game/pattern of pretending to be asleep. I don’t know how it started, but it is a funny game. The whole family is involved, and quite frequently the boys will rush down to bed at night, lay down, and say…”Honk, Shoe, Honk, Shoe” Pretending to be asleep. When an adult enters the room, we joke saying, “Oh good, the boys are asleep, we don’t need to read stories” And then the boys begin giggling…
These boys keep us smiling.