A wild bird & poor Maddie

We knew Roxy was a fast dog. Yesterday we found out just how fast. I didn't see it as I was busy playing Playstation 3 with Riley and Maddie was watching us, but I heard Marci's sudden scream at the dogs that told me something was wrong. When I got upstairs she was out of breath saying, "There's a bird in the room! There's a bird in the room!!" All of our birds were downstairs. The windows were all closed. But sure enough, there was a bird on the floor looking very terrified.

Turns out Roxy had caught the bird outside then brought it upstairs to play with. Poor bird! It's a very pretty blackbird and looks like Roxy may have damaged its wing but we couldn't tell just how bad. Marci called our vet and a few other places. Only one would try to help the wild bird back to health, the Audubon Society. However, they close at 5pm and we called at 4:55pm. So we got a spare bird cage and put the bird in it with some water and food, then covered the cage to help calm it. I checked on the bird this morning and it seemed to be fine, looked good, was moving around ok. Marci is going to take it to the Audubon Society today.

THEN, if that bird wasn't enough fun. Maddie burnt her hand on the stove!

Marci had just finished cooking, turned the stove off, and we've told Maddie TONS of times not to touch the burners. She's in her defiant stage now not doing what we ask and decided to see if it was hot. Instead of just touching it, she pressed here hand on it!

Screams, Marci trying to comfort her, putting her hand under the water, Riley freaking out, me trying to help hold Maddie, utter chaos for about five minutes. We got the neosporin and put it on her hand. That helped a lot - partly because it's the pain relieving formula. We also gave her some children's tylenol. Then we put more neosporin on her hand, found some good wrapping stuff and wrapped it up. I'm sure it'll be sore today and look worse than it is. Fortunately it wasn't THAT bad, no 3rd degree type stuff, and kids heal fast. Soon she was wanting to play and talking like her normal self. She went to sleep real easy too.

So quite the night for us! Oh, and Riley was really nice trying to help Maddie laugh and get her mind on something else. At first he didn't know what to say and I kinda got after him because I didn't want him to say the wrong things and make her cry more. But he figured out what to do and say and really helped her a lot. I also talked to him and explained why I was a little short and asked him to leave Maddie alone - and apologized because he was helping. Next time I'm going to give him a chance first, then if what he's trying to do isn't working I'll ask him to stop.

Never a dull moment at our house! haha

Riley's not-so fun day

Yesterday we were getting new carpet - the last carpet showed the seams horribly. The new carpet is MUCH better. I was getting ready to go home when my cell phone rang. It was Riley's school.

They told me he had fallen and banged his head pretty good. He wasn't that responsive so they called 911 and the paramedics were there. They checked him out and he's sitting up, talking to them doing fine. They also had Marci on the phone. Interestingly, the person talking to her gave her a story that wasn't as nice sounding. That person told her Riley had an accident, the paramedics are there and he's ok at the moment.

At the moment?! What does that mean?? That person had Marci all freaked out. I wish she would have been talking to the person who called me.

Fortunately, they transferred my call to a paramedic who told me everything was. He then asked if I wanted to take Riley home, to his doctor, have them take him to his doctor, or just leave him in school. I figured if they are asking if I want to leave him in school then he must be ok. I asked if he had any recommendation based on what he saw and then I accidentally hung up on myself while trying to put on my car seat belt. D'OH!

I waited for them to call back, they didn't, so I finally called them. By now Marci was at school and everything was fine. Marci called my parents as she was driving up to school because she was freaking out because the school person didn't say anything and made it sound really bad. My Mom called me and I told her I had talked to the paramedic and everything was ok.

Got to the school, found Marci with Riley in the car ready to go home. Her heart was still racing which I can understand. I carried him in from the car and sat with him for a bit. I shared some of my silly things I did as a kid, knocking the wind out of myself and coming to with everyone looking down on me, skinning my arm trying to jump my bike over a way too big ramp, etc. He got a laugh out of that. We sat there for a bit then I had to move the remaining furniture for the new carpet.

He and I sat in the other room reading books, watching tv, playing games, etc. He was doing fine and I couldn't even see the bump on his head anymore. Oh, forgot to say. Sounds like he tried to jump over a basketball, stepped on it instead and did a face-plant. I'm surprised there wasn't any bleeding or anything worse. Just a scrap on his elbow. So the rest of the day he was his usual normal self. We wouldn't let him run too much because we didn't want him to fall again. But he was fine, didn't show any problems or anything.

At night he said he didn't want to go to school because he wasn't feeling good enough. I asked him if he really didn't want to go because he felt silly for what happened and didn't want the other kids to laugh at him. He hesitated, then said yes. Both Marci and I reassured him that wouldn't happen. Marci told him that his teacher called, said she sat the class down, asked what happened, and that everyone was hoping he was ok. Heck, we had the Principle and Vice Principle call too! After some talking, he agreed he really did want to go to school, he just felt silly for what happened.

So it was quite the day for him - and us, especially Marci! But he's fine, no problems. Whew!

One more thing. Maddie was soooooo cute! She tried to give Riley stuff to make him feel better, brought over a blanket in case he wanted it, turned on a light for us, etc. Then she because jealous. She walked into something on purpose, didn't really hurt herself, but grabbed her head and said, "Ow! I hurt my head. Can you please hold me?" LOL! It was funny! After a few hours when Riley was feeling fine, they were back to playing together as usual.

Kids eating dinner

Me: Riley, Maddie, are you hungry?

Kids: YES!

Me: Maddie, what do you want to eat?

Maddie: What's Riley eating?

Riley: Fruit Loops!

Maddie: I want Fruit Loops too!


So the kids are having Fruit Loops for dinner. LOL!

Wow, real customer service!

Yesterday we stopped into Starbucks to get the kids some hot chocolate. Two Jr. High aged girls were in front of us. They were $.85 short and Marci said, "Here's $.85." No big deal, it's just $.85. They of course were grateful and said "Thank You!"

Marci placed her order and when she tried to pay the guy behind the counter said, "No, your order is on me. That was very cool of you to help those girls out, you just don't see that anymore. Thank you!"

WOW! Amazing! She certainly didn't do that to get free hot chocolates. It's nice to see someone still understanding what customer service is about. Wow!