Cool, calm and collected.

You know how you make so many plans for a beautiful Mother's Day weekend?  How you expect to relax and spend time with the ones you love?  Yes, we made those plans, but they did not happen. 

What we also made plans for was a Saturday house project that should have only taken a couple hours.  Support beams in our garage to make sure the enormous amount of toys, clothes and baby gear patiently waiting in our attic wouldn't come through the ceiling.  As we were nearing the end of this project, the beams were mostly in place, but one end needed to be jacked up a little.  My husband, Conrad and my Uncle Charles were at each end of the beam and I was operating the jack.  One last pump of the jack, and everything would be in place.  I pressed the lever with no clue that things were about to get ugly.  That last pump made the support wood pop out of place, and the beam slid off its support.  I was crouching by this jack when the beam struck me in the back of the head. 

I tried to shake it off, stay calm, cool and collected.  I picked myself up and flung myself into a lawn chair.  I was holding my head tightly from the pain when my husband said I was bleeding.  I pulled my hand away and realized I wasn't just bleeding a little.  I had a geyser on the back of my head.  In short order, it was determined that 911 should be called.  The minutes waiting for the ambulance seemed like the longest day ever, even though I know it was only 10 minutes or so.  I felt like I was going to pass out multiple times but did some deep breathing and tried my best to stay conscious.  It worked! I was so proud that I was able to do this since in the past I had lost consciousness from something as simple as hitting my hand on a nerve. 

As I was loaded up for my first ambulance ride, I decided that 32 years was a good long run of not having to do this.  I am lucky.  I am lucky and scared.  I realize how hard this beam hit me.  There was nothing sharp on it so it had literally busted my head open. 

After arriving at the hospital, the most important order of business was obviously getting me in for a cat scan.  They wanted to do this as soon as possible so the stitches had to wait while I was scanned.  All the while bleeding more and more to fuel my fear.  While I was laying on the table for the cat scan the pressure of being on my back was intense and very uncomfortable.  As I was propped back up I thought that I might pass out, and again, fought it off with deep breaths.

Back to the room, and to the staple gun.  Despite numbing the area, there is just something about knowing someone is stapling your head that is extremely uncomfortable.  The last staple hit an area that wasn't numb at all.  It was done though, no more staples.  Just waiting. 

Now we had to wait patiently for the results of the cat scan.  This would determine what the next step was.  This was the big question.  Of course this ordeal had taken several hours.  I was starving and sopping wet from blood and fluids used to clean my wound.  Conrad stayed calm, and I did too.  I had yet to shed a tear.  I had faith that everything would be okay.  And it was.  My results came back clear, I was given a prescription and sent on my way home around 10 p.m. 

My night wasn't over yet though.  I still had hours before I would feel comfortable enough to go to sleep, until 3 a.m. or so.  I was a little scared as well as finding a comfortable position wasn't easy.  But I made it through the night, and kept my composure the entire time. 

Today when I saw all my blood stained clothes, the rags, even the brush that we had used to gently separate my hair from the wound, it was too much.  I had to sit down and have a little cry and thank God for keeping me here with my family, safe and sound.  And off I go to continue the path I know He's put me on.

Toby smells like lick.

My life consists of an enormous amount of "out of the mouths of babes" moments, and beautiful moments of parenthood that make me appreciate every second.  I treasure so many facets of life.  If you've ever known anyone who was left and right brained, you can understand me a little better.  Yes, I am both, and I fight with myself regularly.  This oxymoron makes me adore math and lose everything, draw, paint and arrange flowers but meticulously schedule and clean.  I battle with the good and bad of both those sides of myself.  By profession, I am an accountant, but by choice I'm a creative teacher. 

My family is about to embark on an exciting change.  We are removing our child from public school and enrolling him in the Mommy school.  Yes, I am about to become the main source of his education.  Here again, I fight with myself.  I want to plan every single thing.  At the same time, part of the reason I am doing this for my child is that I want him to explore his creativity beyond what public school will allow.  He is asked to write a story, and he turns in ten pages front and back.  He loses his recess time because he goes above and beyond on these assignments.  The teacher may not expect even one whole page, but he wants to dive into a huge intricate story.  For this, in public school, he is punished.  No recess for you since you have a math worksheet to finish.  Yes, time management is a part of life, but at 7 years old, I want him to relish in every page of that story, not feel punished for writing it.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would start a blog to give myself a digital journal, but also to share with our family that is not so close.  There are also so many people moving towards homeschooling that I might be able to encourage with this blog as we make this transition.

On to the title of this blog, as you might be wondering what that is all about.  Jayden, my sweet 7 year old, discovered in the past week that I can paint and draw.  It was one of those things that never occurred to me to share when I was working a stressful full time job.  Jayden's kitten, Toby, loves to curl up in his lap and take a bath.  Jayden does not like this.  He loves to snuggle with his kitten, but right after a bath, "Toby smells like lick."  Which means he smells like a stinky fish because that's what his breath and food smells like.  Despite this revolting trait, Jayden loves Toby immensely.  So my first piece commissioned by Jayden (he begged me to draw his kitten) was of Toby, who still smells like lick.