Tragedy Strikes

One warm January afternoon Benjamin and I were outside trying to fix the swing set. I had taken on the project by myself for a lot of the day and Benjamin had just returned home and kindly offered to help. The plastic glider seats were weathered and brittle. They easily broke off. The screws however would not turn and I had to hacksaw them off. Then we were drilling the wood and preparing it for the glider.

Bee was patient for a long time and played in the back yard while I and then Ben worked. At one point she collected the round metal connecting rods that we had taken off of the glider. Then she lined them up along the bench and pretended they were a train. Then she tried to walk on them. I should have paid more attention to what she was doing. She promptly fell off and crashed head first into the cement patio. I think that she hit an acorn or tree branch. We rushed her inside to survey the damage.

It was a long, but not deep, forehead cut. I got woozy and had to sit down. I think she was braver than I was. We called a nurse friend who came over and cleaned out the wound. Then she recommended that we purchase butterfly band aids and repair it ourselves. Bee was disappointed that there were no actual butterflies on the band aids. We avoided the emergency room and hope the scar won't be horrible.

She's pretty proud of her forehead and tells everyone who will listen about how she "falled" outside and hit her forehead. She even pretends that others have fallen and hurt their foreheads too.

We've been working lately on improving/streamlining the bedtime routine. One of our biggest problems is that she knows we are downstairs and will leave her room to come find us. She'll stay up in her room for thirty or forty minutes so that we think she's asleep and then we'll hear her pitter patter as she tries to sneak into the family room. We decided to try a bedtime routine sticker chart. It was a great success. We promised her that if she could earn seven stickers for staying in her room all night long that we would take her to Go Go Gorillas (like Chucky Cheese's). She was motivated and it only took her eight days to earn the reward.

The next week she found the stickers, filled in the entire chart, and decorated herself. Silly girl. Note to self: put stickers in a higher location.