It has been a bit stressful around our house lately. Since mid June Sam has been out of town or working 50-60 hour weeks in town pretty much every week. I think he was actually out of town 9 or 10 out of 14 weeks. To say that it has been hard on all of us would be putting it mildly. I have been a single mom and have a new appreciation for moms whose husbands travel regularly or are deployed. The kids have struggled with having a less than 100% mom and no dad. Sam has had a hard time as he has missed so much. As he said tonight, he missed summer. No fun swimming afternoons or really fun anything. He would be home for about 48 hours on the weekend and it was just catch up time. He also missed Caroline really learning to talk. Every weekend he would notice huge differences in her.
The last month was the craziest. Sam was gone Sunday-Thursday night on a trip to Portland, OR. He worked Friday and was home for 2 hours, just long enough to pack to go on a camping trip with Katherine. They got home on Sunday afternoon and he had 4 hours to shower, pack for a 10 day trip to London and spend time with Caroline whom he had not seen in a week.
As luck would have it, while Sam was packing Caroline decided to look for some of my earrings and she pulled my jewelry chest over, cutting her head open. I was in the other room and heard a crash and could tell from Sam's yelling that it was bad. When I went in she was covered with blood and we knew that we were headed to the ER.
This was our first trip to the ER and it was really not a bad experience. One of the hospitals in our area has a children's ER next to the regular ER. She stopped crying before we got there and really was a trooper.
We saw a doctor then waited for the nurse to put some numbing creme on her head. The nurse was so sweet and showed Caroline what was going to happen by doing it to her baby doll. That baby still has on her bandage and has been renamed "booboo baby". By the way, do you like Caroline's outfit? She and Katherine were playing Ariel and we did not both to change her clothes.
Daddy finished packing, showered and dropped Katherine off at my mom's which conveniently is located within walking distance of the hotel. Then he stopped by the ER to see Caroline before he had to fly to London. It was horrible for him to have to leave her in the ER.
When they did the actual stitches they wrapped her up in a sheet and then the nurse and I held her so that she would not wiggle. Then they put a sheet over her face that had a hole cut out just for the cut to show through. She did not like that at all. They gave her some Lydocane shots and did 4 stitches. It was not a fun thing to watch as a mom but I could not imagine leaving her there and not being there for her.
As soon as they took off the sheet she was fine. They gave her a popsicle but she wanted a lollipop from mom instead.
So here is my precious baby girl with 4 stitches and a huge bruise. Poor Nana was the one that had to take her to get the stitches out because I had joined Sam in England by that time. The injury has healed up nicely and we won't know for awhile if there will be a scar or not. Luckily her hair covers it up most of the time.
What an adventure!
Katherine had to show her how to do everything.
We love her sweet teachers.
We were running late and did not have time for pictures before school so we had to do them after school. She was excited to have signs like Katherine had on the first day of kindergarten.
And because I am a dork, I intentionally put Caroline in the same dress and pigtails for her first day of preschool 3's that Katherine had.
