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What a day....

A little background here....

I watch two little boys, brothers, Daniel and Dillon. They lived across the street from me before our road trip. While we were gone, they moved to a house overlooking Puget Sound in another town entirely. It's a long story, but they had to do this (Dad is currently serving in Iraq) Now instead of her walking across the street to bring me the boys each morning, I drive for 45 minutes or more to her house to watch my guys. While I care for them I try to research and write. Not always easy to do, but I try.

They have a dog named Dora. She looks like this:



Only less...cute. The dog is forever escaping the yard, peeing in the house on the rugs and chewing things up.

Yesterday it got out and a frail old neighbor, who had trouble walking, brought her back. Then she got lost again, and I spent a great deal of time tracking her down, to no avail. I searched inside and out. This took some time. I was hot. Up and down the stairs again and again. As I was coming into the downstairs family room for the umpteenth time, five year old Daniel was sitting on the floor next to an exercise thingy, upon which Kylee (a little neighbor girl who has come with me and my youngest Ashley for the day) was standing. (I think it's a stair master or something of that nature)

"Daniel, what's wrong honey?"
(sobbing) "I...I....don't know!!!"
"Honey, don't worry, we'll find Dora, I promise"
(still sobbing)
"Daniel, are you crying becuase Dora is missing?"
"I...I....I...don't knowwwwwww"

As I'm talking to him, I'm getting closer to him and I see blood on his face.

"Daniel!! What happened??"

He continues to sob as I pick him up and rush him to the bathroom to see where the blood has come from. Then I see his fingers.

Oh no. He put his hand into the exercise machine while it was in motion. Oh no.

I hold his hand under the water, which of course elicits louder crying, but I have to do this, I have to. I'm not panicked, being a seasoned mom who has seen a heck of a lot worse in my time, I know there are much worse things out there. I just want to see what has happened to his fingers. Or what's left of them.

Poor thing has had the finger next to the pinky nearly completely stripped of it's fingernail, from well below the nail bed. The pinky finger has had it's nail shredded but is still in place for the most part.

I text the mom. "Please come home right now"

She texts me back "On my way.

She thinks it's about the missing dog because I'd told her she was missing. It's not. So I call her to let her know what has happened. The poor woman is hysterical on the phone with me and that worries me because she's going to drive here.

By the time she arrives she's much calmer but I can see that she is angry. I was hopeful she wasn't angry at me. By this time I've wrapped Daniel's hand in a hand towel and pretty much got the bleeding stopped. She picks him up to take him to the hospital and carries him out through the garage. When she opens the door, there is Dora. Apparently she was locked out there by one of the children.

She leaves, I go upstairs and my husband arrives. I've called him and asked him to come. Besides the Dora-missing fiasco and the Shredded Fingers, we have a backed up toilet to deal with. He fixes the toilet and then tries to fix the exercise thingy. The reason Daniel could put his fingers in it was because the covers had been removed for the move and not put back on. He searches for a screw driver, to no avail. He finally finds a screwdriver but can't locate the hardware. There's nothing he can do.

Meanwhile, I go to let Dora outside. She turns to me, looks right at me and deliberately pees. I yell, she runs, peeing as she goes. This house has incredibly new hardwood floors, with two area rugs. She peed all across one of the area rugs and continued her Pee Run around the couch and to another door before she was caught. You will applaud my self control in that I did not wring it's little neck.

Hubby and I cleaned up the pee as best we could, blotting, cleaning, blotting some more. Then we put the rug outside on the deck railing to dry. Thankfully it all came out and there are no spots. After everything the mom had been through, she didn't need to know that as well.

Did I mention it was a v e r y l o n g day?

Comments

  1. Pammy, I hope they pay you bars of gold for all that hassle. There must be easier ways to make a buck.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a disaster of a day!

    Kinda sounds like you did everything you coulda shoulda done, but karma stepped in.

    Ugly karma.

    Go home, ask hubby if he can give you a massage and some lovin', forget the books for a moment, hug your kids and smile.

    It's the only way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tom, there is easier ways to make money but you keep refusing to put me in your will.

    WW, thanks. I like that kind of advice!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was going to ask you to look after my house while I was away. But now there are some drug crazed, incontinent vivisectionists living in the village, so maybe they would be a better choice.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Vicus, your joke aside, I think that would be an incredibly fun thing to do! We, as blogging friends, could swap houses for a month or so in the summer! How fun would that be? I've never been to England.

    Shall I pencil you for the summmer of 2006?

    ReplyDelete
  6. One thing though, no smoking in my house. Sorry sweetie!

    ReplyDelete
  7. See what happens when you try to teach the dog to sing "Cry Me a River" and it can't get the first word right?

    Yeah, do what WW said. And kick the dog too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Pam, you can have the month my in-laws visit.

    ReplyDelete

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