Some Journey

And then there is this

One of the most predictable things about having five children is the number of "incidents" we encounter, whether minor emergencies or just humorous anecdotes. Yesterday Sydney awoke with a fever of 101. Today she has no fever, but her stomach is red/rashy. No idea. Later in the day, my mom and I were loading some furniture into the back of my van. We had folded down the back seats and opened up the back to make it easier. Sam had carried something out for us when we heard him screaming. We went rushing out to discover that the car doors were all closed and locked, with Sam screaming somewhere inside. I have tinted windows, and combined with the fact that there were two warm kids inside the car and it was rainy outside so the windows had fogged over, we could not see Sam to see what was going on. I did see Noah standing in the front seat, and began to yell in to him to unlock the doors. He started pushing buttons and pulling knobs, but didn't unlock the doors. About that time Joseph ran up and said, "Mom, I have the keys! I took them out so Noah couldn't start the car!" Whew. Good thinking, kid. We unlocked the car and opened the doors to find that Sam's hand had been closed into the back door at the top where the door attaches to the car, so he was essentially hanging from the roof of the car by three fingers. (Insert OUCH here). We got him iced up, and within a few hours the swelling was gone and he was using the fingers normally, citing minimal pain. Today he's fine.
Enough for one day? You would think so.
So we had several people join us to paint at the little house that my parents own which we are fixing up for a summer seminary intern to use in a couple of weeks. It was getting late, so Stephen decided to take the kids home while we finished up. I had just finished painting and was preparing to clean up when my cell phone rang. It was Ethan. "Mom, Dad says to hurry up cause Noah hurt his head and might need stitches."
Noah had decided to unbuckle before pulling into the driveway, and had fallen as Stephen turned in, hitting his head on something that was in the car. Ethan grabbed him and saw that his head was bleeding, so he put his hand over the back of Noah's head and held him until Stephen could get the car stopped and get to him. By the time Stephen was able to get everyone in the house to look at Noah's head, Ethan's entire arm was covered in blood. When I arrived, we began trying to find the source of the blood so we could assess what type of wound it was and how big to decide if we needed to go to the hospital or if we could fix it ourselves (butterfly or bandaid glue). His hair was so matted and tangled together with blood, it was nearly impossible to identify the wound itself. Finally after about an hour of pouring bottled water on the back of his head and scrubbing stubborn spots with a Q-tip we found the 1/4 in, narrow cut. The bleeding had long ago stopped and the cut did not easily open when washed or moved, so we decided to forgo the ER copay and clean it up the rest of the way and leave it alone.
Never boring, huh? And then there's this:
This morning Joseph was playing in the bathtub and I went in to the kitchen to check on some playdough Ethan was making for VBS. A few minutes later, Joseph comes into the kitchen crying. I turn to see where he's hurt to discover that he has somehow gotten his head stuck in Noah's "potty seat". I've been the parent of five kids long enough not to even ask how it got there, but to grab the camera. After about 10 minutes of tugging, I was able to free him.
Makes you almost not want to ask, "Lord, what next?"