Bumps, fevers, and dog food ... our weekend!

Last year, I posted about Bumps because Reagan kept bumping her head ... now it's Avery who can't seem to stay bump free! This week, she took two nasty falls, landing head first both times. Luckily, they were on opposite sides of her forehead.

This was on Tuesday night (3-24-09) ... we were in the kitchen and I was cooking dinner when I watched the fall happen in slow motion. Dawson was outside and Avery walked toward the sliding glass door to look at him. She tripped right over her own foot and fell face first into the sharp edge of the sliding door. I couldn't believe how big the bump was!

You might also be able to see her swollen gums ... this poor girl has 3 molars trying to poke through. Her hands are always in her mouth and she's got lots of slobber going on.

Last night, I watched as she and Brutus both tried to walk into the kitchen together ... Brutus barely bumped into her, she lost her balance, then she fell into the craft table (head first, of course!).

The only saving grace when it comes to bumps like these is that Maribel gave me a magical remedy: when she recently went to Spain, her relatives there insisted that she rub this stick onto Joaquin's head when he fell. She brought two of them back and gave one to me. Whenever the girls fall, I rub this stick (kind of like a glue stick, yet the substance is more oily) right onto the wound and it hardly even bruises! It's amazing. They also told me to use Olive Oil and I once tried that when I'd left the stick somewhere ... the olive oil worked really well too :)

Here's Reagan helping John feed the dogs. Yes, she's in a T-shirt and a pair of tights ... and red shoes. She's such a funny girl. She's been sick all weekend :( She's had a very high fever (104.4 and I don't think we took her temperature when it was at its highest). She's such a good sport whenever she's sick. She's usually happy, but somber and snuggly. Even though we tell her she's sick and can just hang out in PJ's all day, she still insists on getting dressed, and always in a DRESS! She is totally refusing to wear pants these days. She's such a sweet little girl and John and I love her to pieces!

Bumps and Bruises

So, I recently read a post about bumps on my cousin's wife's blog ... confusing, right? It's the blog of Kristin Wallace who is married to my cousin Matt, who is the son of my aunt Cora Wallace, who is my mother's sister. If I ever feel like life with two young kids is hard, I just read her blog and I immediately feel better. She is the mother of 4 (yes, FOUR) young boys! It wears me out just thinking about life as a mom of 4 boys! She's a trooper and seems to handle it VERY well. Anyway, back to the point of this post: I recently read about her bump theory that bumps attract more bumps. So that was the first thing I thought about when Reagan did a face plant into the kitchen tile floor. She was squatting down, trying to get her socked feet into my flip flops when she lost her balance and tipped over ... her hands were helping her feet into the shoes and weren't available to catch her or brace her fall and she landed right on her forehead.

I actually witnessed the fall, but didn't think it was very bad, since she was already pretty low to the ground. She cried and I comforted her and that was that. About 20 minutes later, we were getting ready to go upstairs for a bath and I noticed the big goose-egg on her forehead! I felt horrible that 20 minutes had passed and I hadn't put any ice on it yet. As soon as I got her the bag of ice, she immediately placed it on her head and didn't take it off. She was so good about it! Here's a picture of her sitting on John's lap as I got the bath ready for her:

Here she is in the bathtub - see the bump above her right eye? It had definitely gone down by this point, thanks to the ice.
So ... the next day, I took Reagan to the park to meet a few of her friends. Sure enough, she tripped and fell onto the wood chips, scratching her poor little face on the same side! Once again, it didn't seem too bad at first glance ... here she is with Timmy and the picture hardly shows any damage:

But when we got home, it was one of the first things John noticed. She now had a small cut right on top of the bruise/bump on her forehead, as well as some small scratches on her cheek.

So, I now believe in Kristin's theory that bumps attract more bumps ... it hadn't even been 24 hours!