Bloody April

(Flowers Claire brought in and arranged on the windowsill) 

I'm really kind of glad April is over. It turned out to be a rather bloody month. 

My sweet Ethan went outside to play with Matthew and the two little ones for a while, so I could start dinner. I gave the bigger boys instructions to stay close to the house and keep an eye on the babies for just a few minutes. Well, Ethan "forgot" what I had just said and took off for parts unknown leaving Matthew playing with Claire and Emmett on the back porch. Matthew realized after about 5 minutes that Ethan wasn't coming back and started calling him. When Ethan didn't answer he took off to find him taking the little ones along. Ethan in the meantime had climbed up a tree and fell out head first. He managed to knock himself out and Matthew found him in the woods on the far side of our goat pasture, dazed on the ground in a pool of blood. Matthew slung Ethan over his shoulder and carried him wounded soldier style, telling the babies to follow him and screaming for me to come help. Thankfully we had the windows open and I heard Matthew as soon as he started screaming for me to come help. By the time I made it to him he was over half way back to the house. Poor Ethan ended up in the emergency room and had to get 3 staples in his head. Other than the cut just inside his hairline on his forehead, he was fine. 

My boys make bows and arrows out of sticks and string. They also have toy bows and arrows with rounded safety tips that they use for practicing archery in the yard. They set up straw bales with paper targets and shoot into them. They are quite good at hitting their targets. But before I tell this story I should probably throw in here a little side note so it makes more sense. 

One of our English bulldogs Ginger was bred two months ago and her due date came, and we got puppies!!! Four adorable bulldog puppies, with wrinkles and spots and puppy breath! All four boys, we have a lot of boys around these parts it seems! 

So the morning that Ginger had her puppies I was helping her get situated and latch all the puppies on to nurse. Claire and Emmett were being very "helpful"! So I sent them out of the room to go play with toys somewhere else. Emmett went and found Ethan and they went off to play together, and Claire went to the big boys bedroom, right next door to the room I had Ginger and the puppies in. Just a second later Claire started screaming! Matthew (who was helping me with the dogs) and I jumped up and ran to see what was wrong. Claire had picked up one of the boys safety arrows (you know, the ones with the rounded tips!) and somehow had fallen and impaled the roof of her mouth with the arrow. The arrow was on the floor before I rounded the corner. There was blood gushing out of her nose and mouth, and she was screaming and choking. I ran to the bathroom with her and and told Logan to call his dad, and I tried to calm her and wipe away some of the blood so I could see how bad it was and what I needed to do. Matthew went back to the puppies to make sure they were ok, and I decided that I needed to get Claire to Children's Hospital ASAP! I left all the boys home with Logan watching the baby, and took off as quickly as I could. Rodrigo met us on the way to the hospital, and finished driving us there. Turns out the arrow had scraped her soft palate, bounced back further and actually cut all along next to one of her tonsils.  In the end, they decided not to do anything for her, since the bleeding had stopped. But it was really scary! 

And now the arrows are way up, out of reach...but all of the sticks...? We live surrounded by woods and trees. There are "dangerous" things everywhere. So I pray, a lot. And I warn them to be extra careful. And to please never, ever, ever put anything like sticks or arrows into their mouths. But they all still climb trees and they still play with sticks, and I try to remember that ultimately I can't wrap them in bubble wrap and keep them on the floor next to me 100% of the time. I worry, more than I should probably, but I'm the mama, and that's what we do. I just try not to let that be the mama that my children know. I want them to know that I love them and I want them to know that I am very concerned for their safety, and their well-being, and I want them to learn to take care of themselves and be smart. But this whole growing up and having accidents really scares me some days! 

In other news, both of my goats had babies! Daisy had twin boys and Larkspur had a single boy. So now we have to figure out what to do with three little bucklings. I was hoping for at least one doeling...but no. We all just seem to have boys around here :-). Having Claire was a total surprise, I mean I have boys...it's what I do! But what a fun surprise she has been!

P.S.The park pictures are from a new to us park that we found close to home and went exploring last week. I love catching pictures of my big boys playing with their littler siblings. They hold their hands when we walk and talk to them and teach them things, under no prompting from us. They are usually (but not always:-)) extremely patient and attentive with them. I love watching that, it makes my heart swell!