Sundays

Not sure of why all of the medical emergencies in our family happen on Sundays...even better, Sundays when David is on call. Poor Alec spent the entire morning in a collared shirt and tie and we never made it to church. While I was feeding the baby the three bigger kids made their way into the kitchen to wait for breakfast. I soon heard the customary crash of Anne falling. This is a common daily occurance. Somewhere in the area of 5 to 15 times a day Anne falls...from chairs, tables, couches, and then there are the falls because of pushy siblings, slippery socks and some just plain old for no apparent reason. She always yells as though she is dying (Many women swear that they can tell the difference between their childrens mad, hurt, scared and whining cries. With Anne I have given up trying to interpret them. They all sound the same.). I left Pati screaming indignantly in the bedroom and went to check it out since Jan and Alec were yelling about blood. This morning was a little different - she really had hurt herself and there was blood "all over" the kitchen. It always surprises me how much little cuts in the head bleed. When we got it all cleaned up the wound had shrunk down to a generous inch on her forhead...below the hairline. I thought that I would be traipsing back to the emergency room since the gash was pretty deep and looked to be too wide for the super glue treatment (Which I couldn't do by myself anyway...Anne is a wiggler even when she isn't in pain). There are several Doctors that attend the church that we attend - I tried "my" Doctor first (David). He answered my page but was awfully busy and it looked as though I should only use him if I was completely out of other options. I called the doctor that the kids call "Mr. Steve" who lives right down the street and is married to another doctor who the kids call "Mrs. Heather". They weren't home. I had one other option - the doctor who the kids call "Megan's Dad". He was home and graciously gave up a good portion of the morning to put some stitches in Anne's head.
It has been snowing hard all morning but we may venture outside later to break icicles off of the gutters. We already did this yesterday and stored some away in the freezer, but there is a fresh crop this morning and opening the front door is hazardous because it makes ice daggers come crashing down. I think that it distresses the gutters too.
There is so much snow outside that we have a snowman (he really is an icelumpman since the only way to get snow to pack is to build mounds and pour water over it) and a killer snow fort in the front yard - this last week we built two sledding hills in the back yard and are working on an igloo (although I forgot to pour water over that so it is not ready for excavation yet). People don't expect any sign of spring until April.
If there are no other emergencies maybe we will try to make it to night church this evening.