The madness continued the next day, when I got a call from the school saying that Haley had fallen headfirst onto the concrete basketball court and had a massive bump. They wanted her taken to the doctor as soon as possible. Which turned out to be about 2 hours later. Because of course, I had taken the bus. Which meant I had no car. And Aaron had no coverage at work so he couldn't leave. So I took a cab from my office to his store... where I learned that he'd been able to arrange to leave after all. So we both headed for home and finally arrived to pick up Haley. We took her to the doctor's office - where they immediately sent us to the Children's Hospital Urgent Care instead. She was acting fine, but the bump was massive and frightening looking. You can't really get the full sense of it from the photo. So off we go to Urgent Care, where they ask her to rate her pain from 0-10. "Oh, it's a 0," she tells them. No headache. The bump doesn't really hurt when they touch it. She feels fine. This from a girl who regularly throws fits over the tiniest scratches and demands an ice pack every time she stubs her toe. But no, she's fine. She has no pain. I'm sure they wondered why we even brought her in. (But we have a friend who last year had a child with a traumatic brain injury from a playground fall - we're very cautious now! Plus the doctor sent us!) They sent her home with instructions to watch her and warnings that she was going to have a massive bruise, but she was otherwise fine. The next morning - nothing. Not a bump. Not a bruise. Nothing but a tiny scrape to show for the adventure. (And what's sure to be a large hospital bill, of course!)I then continued my crazy work schedule of working from 6:30 - 5:00 every day at the office, coming home to give the kids dinner and put them to bed, and then continue working from home until 1 or 2 a.m. This was the schedule for the first 2 weeks of May, culminating in a lovely Mother's Day where I took time to go to church, fixed some leftovers for everyone to eat, and then dragged them all to my office for several hours to help me stuff folders in preparation for our conference starting the next day. (I did, however, get some great new books as gifts. And now that the conference is over, I've had time to actually start reading them!)
The next week was spent running a conference for 350 participants from across the U.S. and Canada. (Okay, technically there was only one attendee from Canada - but that makes us international! Right? Next year we'll have more.) It was actually a great conference (she said modestly), and fun, but a lot of work. I was working from 6 a.m - 11 p.m. every day. I worked those hours last year, too, but also had to factor in a drive of about 45 minutes to and from home. This year I wised up and stayed at the hotel where the conference was held. It was a bit strange to be away on a business trip while so close to home. But it was a really nice hotel. Since I was one of the conference organizers, I was classified as a VIP and got a great room. It had a wonderful patio attached with comfy-looking lounge chairs. I saw it when I checked into the room at 6:00 Monday morning.
And this is all I saw of the patio until time to check out at the end of the week.
I did thoroughly enjoy the bed, though! The Westin calls it their signature "Heavenly Bed," and I don't think that's overselling it. It was SO nice for the short stretches of time that I got to use it!
Conference over, I went home on Thursday afternoon. And immediately fell into bed for a 2-hour nap. And then I went back to bed a few hours later. And got up in the morning long enough to take kids to school and drop the (other) car at the mechanic for a brake job. And went back to sleep for most of the day. I think I had finally caught up on most of my sleep by the time Sunday came... and time for another birthday!
Preston had a bit more luck with his birthday. He got to go to church where they sang to him. Then we came home and did presents. We headed out for dinner at his chosen location of Cinzetti's. (I know we're not supposed to go out on Sunday... sorry. We bend the rule for a birthday.) Preston ate a lot - which always thrills us. It's so hard to get that boy to eat! He had dinner, then cake, then ice cream. Then the servers sang Happy Birthday and brought him a huge piece of a special birthday cake. And he ate almost all of that, too. That's probably more than we get him to eat in several normal days! We finished off the night with family movie night - Jurassic Park. Not exactly a restful bedtime story (as Grandma Schurz pointed out - LOL), but it was the birthday boy's choice. He's currently quite obsessed with dinosaurs. (How convenient that he has a mother raised in Dinosaurland who can talk dinos with him!) I was a little worried that he'd be scared by the movie - but instead he and Brekken thought it was pretty cool when people got eaten. Especially the bad guys. However, they were quite relieved to check through the house and realize that we were velociraptor-proof... all round doorknobs at our house! (I'm sure you've seen the movie - where the smart dinos learn how to open the doors with the lever latches.) And now we're on to the end of school festivities... kindergarten graduation yesterday, delayed birthday treats for Preston to take to school today (I need a new recipe for rice krispie treats... mine did not turn out well - anyone have a good one?), field day tomorrow, and the last day of school Thursday. Whew! But all in all, a much better end to the month than it began!
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