Marvelous Adventures with Rocks

I've had a "rock-y" day.

Since tomorrow is Caleb's birthday, I painted the rock for him. For those unfamiliar with "the rock," there's a 6-7 foot-tall boulder on the main road through White Rock that people paint for various occasions.

Caleb has started noticing it more lately. Maybe because we go past it at least twice a day every day except Saturday. I figured a fifth birthday greeting would be a good occasion to paint the rock. So Julie and I painted the rock. It took me an hour. The rock is very bumpy and lumpy and hard to paint with a brush. This is the 3rd time I've painted it - the first time was with spray paint - it hurts my fingers and makes my arm cramp to use spray paint for that long. I don't remember how we did it the 2nd time. Anyway, here is the result:

I went up to Los Alamos after painting and picked up C & A from school, then brought them home. Caleb was pleased with his surprise!


It says "Gimme 5" behind Caleb's head. The yellow blob-y thing up high is supposed to be a T-Rex head sans eyeball.
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Thinking about the next events makes my stomach turn.

As we were getting back into the Sequoia, Julie's crying went from "hungry" to "serious injury" while I was getting Audrey into the car. When I turned to look, I saw the rock on her chest just below her chin. Almost immediately, she started spitting out blood as she was crying. Then it started coming out her nose. Since we were in the same parking lot as the kids' doctors' office, I got all 3 kids strapped in and we drove over and barged in.

Fortunately the receptionist is a friend from church. I felt much better when I realized that. I know she would have taken the same good care of anyone, but it was nice to see a familiar face behind the desk. She ushered us into an exam room immediately, and within 5 minutes a nurse had done a brief triage and the doctor was looking at her.

He thinks it was just a bloody nose because he didn't find any breaks anywhere on her face or head. I got queasy twice while he was looking at her and had to finally lay down. The big kids were playing very nicely in the waiting room and our friend the receptionist held Julie after the doctor was done taking care of me. He gave me some lemonade and a cold cloth for my forehead after I lay down. I also cried twice while I was there.

As far as I can piece it together, Caleb was trying to put the rock on Julie's chest while she was in her carseat. He says he dropped the rock, but I wonder if he sort of tossed it. Steve came home and gave Caleb a very stern "talking to".

Julie is fine. After we got home, I fed her and she was smiling and cooing almost immediately. She's asleep now and the other 2 kids are watching TV.
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Here's a picture of the girls from earlier this week. Audrey crawled into bed with Julie after Steve and I got up. It was too cute to resist the photo op.


This picture of Julie is from Monday. She pulled the burp cloth up over her face all by herself and went to sleep.

















Tonight is tacos at church, then the AWANA carnival. It will be chaotic, but the kids really enjoy it. Time to sign off.

--A