The not-so-good part

We experienced a few unfortunate mishaps this past weekend. The good news is that no one was seriously hurt. The bad parts are that we spent time in an emergency care medical facility on Sunday afternoon to help John and that on Monday morning Scott had to deal with a time-consuming car repair issue that was unexpected.

I'll describe the John issue here and let Scott fill you in on the car issue later. Let's just say that Scott is Expedition-less this week while the back door of his vehicle gets replaced. Go Scott, the children love the red color of your rental vehicle. I am sorry for your loss but am happy that it is simply a tangible object that is easily replaced. Thank goodness for insurance.

Now about John. As I have previously posted, on Sunday afternoon we were planning to go to Stefan and Julie's house for a relaxing afternoon of swimming and dinner. I took the kids to church and Sunday School in the morning, we came home and had lunch as a family, and then were hanging out at home until it was time to go to Stefan's.

Scott (wisely) had the idea to take the children out back to practice hitting the ball off the tee. During this time I was in Amelia's room attempting to clean out one of her closets. And then, after about 15 minutes of glorious peace (I got two bags packed for Goodwill!), the back door opened and I could hear John wailing at the top of his lungs, obviously upset about something.

At first I thought it was a behavioral issue between John and his sister, but I quickly learned that John had gotten struck on his ear, in the face, with the t-ball bat. An ALUMINUM bat, struck to his ear mid-swing, which had to have hurt like hell. Yes, it was an accident, and yes, so many times we have instructed the children to stand back when the other is swinging the bat. But to no avail, John was struck on Sunday. Scott and I were terrified and his ear was bright purple and bleeding.

It turned out that we were very lucky in that the bat hit John on the ear lobe where the composition is primarily cartilage and no bones were broken. There was a lot of swelling on his outer ear and a small tear at the base of the ear, but no permanent damage and miraculously, nothing that would require stitches. The doctor at the urgent care facility checked out the ear drum and ear canal and said that both were OK, so finally Scott and I could breathe a sigh of relief. Amelia was beside herself this whole time, crying alongside John and declaring that she was so sorry and that it was an accident. We checked for signs of a concussion or brain-issues for many hours afterwards, but John seemed to be functioning just fine.

I am grateful that in nearly seven years of parenting this is our first trip to an urgent care facility. I know we should knock on wood for that as we are very lucky. And I am even more grateful that the urgent care facility was very nice and not crowded. We were registered and with the doctor (who was very nice and confident in her care of John) in 10 minutes, out of there after 30 minutes. God bless, how lucky we are.

John still has a purple ear, though the swelling has decreased a bunch since Sunday. The only semi-funny thing about this whole event was watching John after the incident, loudly declaring to his friends that "My ear is purple because my sister hit me in the head with a baseball bat!" Not exactly the way it played out, but we'll let John have his say. No harm done.