near misses

I'm not sure what's up with all of us, but I can tell you that we have some freaky moments in the last couple of weeks.



First, 2 weeks ago when our mailman was helping us unload our new refrigerator off of the trailer in the driveway, he accidentally lowered it (on the dolly) right into Sandi who had no choice but to fall backwards off the trailer, skull-first toward the concrete. I had just walked down the front steps from propping the door open and was taking the corner around the trailer to check on the road-darting Maya just as Sandi was falling into the air. In true super-hero style (ok, more like with my arms flailing too) I caught her. (She also sort of caught me but the story isn't as good that way.) One cringes to think of the injuries to the noggin to hit from a high point with the force of refrigerator weight helping gravity downward. And the timing of it...we couldn't have coordinated that with stopwatches, a plan and a walk-through rehersal!



Second, Sandi and I were loading some other stuff into the trailer (damn that trailer) and Maya was playing in the car with the door open. She was sitting down in Ella's booster seat playing with seat belt when, defying most of the laws of physics and torque, she fell out of the car onto the pavement and landed on her forehead and then flat on her back. She had roadrash on her forehead.



Third, Maya was super sick last weekend with fevers of almost 105 and moments of respiratory distress. Now see, Maya has paved the way for her mommies of dealing with sickness and various physical difficulties in parenting (wheezy nights in our bed, previous high fevers with delirium, nebulizers, missing teeth, biting, falling off something almost daily, and the aforementioned car incident) but this was one of the most scary parenting moments I had had (rivaled only by when Ella had some sort of freaky viral meningitis and was drooling and barely speaking for a whole day.) I sat in the exam room at the doctor's office with fat tears falling, despite my continuous, mad swiping with my sleeve-covered hand to discourage their fall.

(Thank you so very much to such dear friends who took Ella for the day on Saturday and Sunday so that 100% of my focus could be on Ms. Sickness. Sandi was at work all three days Maya was really sick and it was hard on everyone- probably mostly on Sandi.)

Fourth, on Sunday when I was still on convalescent duty (having not gone running in 4 long days and feeling a bit krispy around the edges) I fell really hard on my bathroom floor, fearful I had broken my hand where I tried to break my fall on the edge of the shower. As I fell, and slip and bumped across my bathroom floor all I could think was, "PLEASE! Not my legs! Not my back! I NEED TO RUN THIS MARATHON!" Forget my spinal cord or brain stem, I was only concerned with my ability to run. Even when I assessed the damage, I was only a little worried about being able to massage with a potentially broken or badly sprained hand. Lots of ice and tlc and it was better in 24 hours, minus a pretty purple bruise down my wrist.

As if that wasn't enough, yesterday I was backing out of babysitter's driveway (with plenty of room to spare) and when I righted myself in my lane I looked and there was a pick-up truck heading straight for me. He was passing a car (and had apparently made the choice to pass at the same time I was pulling into my lane- a horrible case of bad timing) and was bearing down toward our van. Now I know this isn't the time to judge my response time, but I'm pretty sure I froze. I think I even said out loud, "Get out of my lane!" (Not a time for righteousness indignation, though, is it?) Luckily the car that was being passed slowed almost a stop so that the truck could pass and get back in the correct lane, but I have to say I was really disturbed that I didn't at the very least pull off the road to the right. I'm sure that it was only a nano-second in reality and I probably hadn't even shifted the van into drive yet, but I keep replaying it in my head thinking, "When push comes to shove and our kids are in the back, I FREEZE?! Where is my momma bear response?"

I did lay on the horn (again with the righteous indignation) and in truth if I had pulled off the road but not reached safety quickly enough, the girls would have been the ones hit from the side. So there.

So enough is enough I say!