The Mommy Blog | Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood

Sunday, May 30, 2004

Our family has a curse. We don’t shape-shift, or drink blood, or even sell Amway (shudder), but it is puzzling and bizarre and eerily predictable. Someone in our family always gets injured on a holiday.

We can’t explain it. We can’t avoid it. And whenever we think we’ve skated, we usually find out later that someone, somehow got hurt. This year is a little unusual, however, because there seems to be a 12-hour swing now on either side of the holiday. For instance, Gil is at the emergency room right now, but it won’t be Memorial Day for another 9 hours. Go figure.

I’ve sketched a recap of the last few years. I know there were more incidents than the ones I’ve listed, but I will have to check with mom to remember correctly…

Father’s Day, 1999: I sliced my finger to the bone cutting bagels, fainted, and gave myself a shiner on the dishwasher on the way down. The good news? The doctors in the Gary, Indiana ER are really good with defense wounds!

Labor Day, 1999: We thought we’d done ok, until we realized that my stepdad had cracked a tooth at our picnic and needed an emergency crown.

Memorial Day, 2001: This was a triple-whammy. Gil was working on the sprinkler system when he stabbed himself in the thigh with an exacto knife. I took him to the ER and left him there while I took the children back home. Not 30 minutes later, his father was calling to let us know that a family friend has been electrocuted on his front lawn when he touched a pipe to a live wire. I had to tell them that Gil would have to call them back, as he was being sewn up at the hospital.

I went back to the ER several hours later to pick him up and as I was waiting with the children, my mother walked in with a with a spouting stab wound in her hand. She and my stepdad had been working in the yard (sprinklers again) when she decided to clean out her outdoor votive candles with a serrated steak knife. The knife shattered the glass, went right through her hand and took an artery with it. As Gil was discharged, I tossed him the car keys and the stroller, and went to fill out mom’s paperwork and wait with her to be seen by a plastic surgeon.

Later that night, my stepdad dropped me off at home. As I walked through the door, Gil said to me without even looking up, “Have a look in the garage.” The cabinet holding all of our laundry gear, pesticides, paint cans, and odds & ends had fallen off the wall, killed the dryer, dented the washer, flipped over, and impaled itself on the Jeep’s rearview mirrow.

Labor Day, 2001: Overnight camping trip/mini-music festival with large group of friends. One three year old, one 12-month old, and a bun in the oven. No WAY was I sleeping in a tent. So we rented a cabin with a king size bed, only to discover on arrival that said bed was ten feet off the floor, up a ladder, in a loft consisting of an edgeless platform. Jesus wept.

In the end no one fell off the platform, but Dylan slipped off the bottom rung of the ladder, fell twelve inches, and fractured his wrist. You simply have not lived until you have in appeared in public with a baby in a cast.

Thanksgiving, 2002: Dylan pops the most impressive-looking hernia in family history, and we are prone to them. This one was a rare, Spigelian hernia, off to the side of the belly button and therefore not a an umbilical hernia. The hospital is called, but we are told we can wait a day to bring him in, unless of course he displayed further sysptoms like vomiting, fainting, or uncontrollable screaming.

New Year’s Eve, 2002: Dylan has triple-hernia repair. Or more accurately, attempted triple-hernia repair. They fixed the two inguinals, but the more rare and worrisome Spigelian hernia could not be located once they’d opened him up. We get a glimpse of it now and then, however, when he has especially vibrant tantrums.

Christmas week, 2003: Logan and Dylan each celebrated the holiday with trips to the ER for head wounds. Dylan pulled his stocking holder down on his head, and exactly one week later (Same admitting nurse both nights), Logan fell off his dresser and split open the back of his scalp.

Memorial Day, 2004: The neighbor stopped by a short while ago to say that she had heard a BANG BANG BANG ~ OUCH!, and was a bit worried. Gil had been installing a downspout and sliced his finger open, and he’s still at the emergency room…

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said on...
05.30.04 at 02:41 PM |

-You simply have not lived until you have in appeared in public with a baby in a cast.

My oldest had to wear casts on both legs from the knees down for 8 weeks when she was 6 months old. I took her to the mall. That was a mistake! Her feet were curved and that was what they did to fix them then (2 years later, child #2, same problem - “We’ve discovered it will correct itself").

Mad said on...
05.30.04 at 03:08 PM |

We have almost the same problem—each time the girls are on break from school, they seem to break something in the house that we have to replace—it’s a conspiracy, I tell you! LOL

bird said on...
05.30.04 at 06:02 PM |

Geez! Here I was thinking that my family had the worst luck ever.
No more accidents this weekend!!!!!!

Nicole said on...
05.30.04 at 06:21 PM |

Right...note to self...respectfully decline any Holiday Dinner invitations to Mindy’s house. Yikes!!! I would seriously spend my holidays in a padded room if we had that sort of track record. I am glad you are all able to still talk about it. Goodness!!

Hula Doula said on...
05.30.04 at 06:53 PM |

Thank you for the invitation to spend the holiday with you but I am afraid we wouldn’t survive! giggle!

Buzz said on...
05.31.04 at 01:02 AM |

Sweet jesus!! Remind me to stay out of the line of fire! You know, when we come visit you. Like we do.

Rachel Ann said on...
05.31.04 at 02:08 AM |

I hope he is out of the hospital and right as rain and quick!!!

Maybe you all ought to ban holidays in the house. Or sneak around to celebrate. Say loudly: Hmmmmmmm; does a barbeque sound good tonight? NO SPECIAL REASON! Just seems like a good day for barbequing.

Hope he is home by now.

Fluffy said on...
05.31.04 at 02:44 AM |

what was the bang bang bang ouch !!!!!!!!
WHo has hurt themselves now? eek

viki said on...
05.31.04 at 04:41 AM |

oh yes.. I hvae had a couple of those.. though not on holidays persay.. my 4yo broke her leg… and well that was fun each and every time trying to explain that and then getting the paperwork from the Ins company about young children breaking their limbs weither it was legit or not. Remeber as a kid when breaking something was just a part of life? Now you have to explain in reassurance that your not a child beater. My littlest one, had to have stitches above his lip… 5 of them, that was great too. He fell off the bed and cut his lip open. My oldest is holding on.. so far so good.. Damn woman, you need your own personal wing at the hospital.. lol. Many hugs.

AnneWhitney said on...
05.31.04 at 05:40 AM |

Since you have all apparently survived your disasters with no permanent damage I can say this—I am so happy to see that such things happen to other people too. We don’t have the freaky holiday hex, just a regular proclivity to visit emergency rooms - at home and away! Whenever we want to engage in any norman family activity my husband insists, “Oh no, some normal family could do that, but we’ll end up in the emergency room.” I have seriously thought about going to nursing school.

Elen said on...
05.31.04 at 07:48 AM |

Our kids always liked to visit strange podunk little town ER’s when we were on vacations! You never knew where the ER was going to be…

pam said on...
05.31.04 at 09:48 AM |

Does the body relax its vigilant attitude against germs when it knows a holiday’s coming? My daughter (and consequently my husband) had a bug this three-day weekend. Inconvenient.

Zoot said on...
06.01.04 at 04:35 AM |

Um...yeah - I think that you should just not do ANYTHING within’ 24hours of the 4th of July, okay?

Lee said on...
06.01.04 at 04:52 AM |

Gotcha beat this year - one broken wrist (Maddy) and one broken toe (me)

Katie said on...
06.01.04 at 07:49 AM |

Ouch!

Little Island said on...
06.01.04 at 11:13 AM |

My son spent one of our recent vacation at the beach with a cast on his arm. Doing this the night before our departure added some extra drama to the trip.

Rockchild said on...
06.02.04 at 01:39 AM |

Wow, that’s alot of bad luck! One week I got hurt alot playing baseball, got hit three times in the head with baseball bats in two games, and one time when it was my turn to bat I got hit in the head with a fastball when I took off my helmet to scratch my head.

I mostly hit my head on my ceiling now, because I live under our roof, but not for long since we are moving this morning, so I better start taking my computer apart, and hope I don’t hit my hesad here one last time.

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