Yeah, Matthew got bit by a fish

After a long hiatus, with many neglected opportunities for me to write about our daily events, I am finally back to writing a blog post. This one just couldn't be left to fade in our memories and had to be written down so here I am writing about our trip up north last week.

We spent the better part of last week at a cabin on a lake in Alexandria, MN. It was a nice, quiet place, which plenty of room for the family and Ken and Cheri. Abby even got her own laundry room to sleep in which was very much needed after an unsuccessful attempt at having the three kids together in a bedroom.

We spent our days swimming, fishing, reading, napping, playing and boating and the kids had a great time. They loved the water and the sand, although they mostly spent their time "swimming" in about 18 inches of water or less. The only child who would venture out deeper was Matthew. We'd strap him up in his life jacket, position his noodle in front of him and he and I would swim out past the dock and boat into a little deeper water where there weren't weeds (yuck, I hate hate hate weeds on my legs when swimming). So we had done that a few times and Matthew just loved it. He would laugh, kick and basically frolic about in the water.

So Thursday afternoon we were enjoying a nice day and swimming a lot. Matthew and I had already swam out in the deeper water a few times, and I decided that I wanted to go out some more. I was planning on maybe swimming a bit more for exercise, but Matthew wanted to join me, so we got in the water an headed out. After we were about 20 feet from shore, Matthew (who was behind me), started screaming, "A crab bit my foot! Ahhhh! It hurts! A crab bit my foot! It hurts, it hurts!" I wasn't sure what was going on and though maybe he was startled by a patch of weeds or something, but he was screaming and crying so it seemed to be more than just being scared by weeds. I swam back to him and pulled him to shore and when I picked him up, I noticed his foot was indeed dripping with blood and covered in a few cuts and scratches.

He continued screaming, "It hurts, it hurts! The crab bit my foot! It had 95 claws! It hurts, it hurts!" which was accompanied by extreme crying. We got him on a towel and wrapped his foot in a clean diaper which happened to be handy for when Abby was done swimming, and had a chance to look at what happened to his foot. He had five cuts, four on the top of his foot and a deep, about 1" gash on the bottom of his foot. The cuts on top weren't bleeding immensely, and two were mostly just scratches, but the bottom one was a gusher. The cuts on top were roughly in a V arrangement, from his toes, to one at the top of his foot where it joins the leg and the bottom cut was about in the middle.

We went through possibilities...did he cut it on something in the water that we couldn't see? The water was murky and you couldn't see much past 18" deep. But we had swam past that area plenty of times and never had a problem. Did he cut it on the boat ramp or the dock? Nope, he was way to far away from them...like at least 6-8 feet away....Hmmm, in spite of the improbability, based on all the evidence of the cuts, the circumstances (murky water, by weeds) and so on, we finally came to the conclusion that he was bit by a big fish. A fish with a mouth big enough the leave cuts on the top and bottom of his foot and big enough to leave cuts across his foot from his toes to nearly his leg. In other words, a really big fish.

We covered Matthew's cuts in neosporin and bandaged him up, then wrapped his foot in athletic tape to hold the bandaids in place. He hobbled about for a few hours, but was pretty much back to himself in a day or so. And now his bandages are gone and there are just a few scabbed over cuts on his foot to remind us and him of his swimming ordeal.

After talking to my dad about it, Dad said that Matthew was lucky that the fish let go as they often grip onto their prey very tightly. I told Matthew this information to which he replied, "It didn't let go, I fought it off." That's my boy. So ended our vacation. I don't know if my kids (or even me) will be swimming in a lake for a long time.

A winter walk

Since the temperature warmed up to a nice 20 today I decided it was time to head to Perry Park. We've been away from Perry Park for a long time, but today was our return. I debated whether to take the sled or wagon along with, but went for the wagon because it's pretty tough and I thought it could withstand both clear trails and snowy ones. So I loaded it in the van as our street is really sloppy right now and we drove to Perry Park. The kids played on the playground a bit first. The swings just barely swung a few inches above the snow, and the bottom of the playground structure, the slides, ladders and other climbing things were covered. Abby took to crawling around because the snow was so deep, but the boys really enjoyed trudging through the snow and sliding and climbing.

Then we headed down the trail to our favorite rock-throwing place. The trail is quite shaded, so it was covered with packed snow despite the past few sunny days, but the wagon handled the trail quite nicely. Most of the time the wagon was empty as all the kids preferred to walk or climb. Sam especially enjoyed climbing up and down the 8-10 foot high drifts on the side of the winding trail. The snow was very packed hard from being windblown and he was quite proud of how tall he was standing on their peaks.

When we arrived at our rock-throwing place, there was only more snow with the reed of cattails poking out from the snow and ice. The boys laughed as they walked out on the snow-covered ice where their rocks usually landed in the summer. Pretty soon that portion of the trail will be covered with water and impassable with the spring thaw.

We continued our walk and headed down the trail toward Lake Johanna. The kids were doing quite fine and Sam was quite a trooper pulling both Abby in the wagon for quite awhile. The walk continued to be mostly snow covered with a few patches of clear pavement and some icy patches too. When we reached the train tunnel there was lots of yelling as there always is of "Echo!" by all the kids.

When we arrived at Lake Johanna we had to cross the sloppy and busy road and I felt rather awkward and out-of-place pulling my wagon filled with winter-attire-decked-out kids. But we crossed the road and made it to the boat launch area where we left the wagon headed out onto the lake. There are trails on the lake where cars have driven for ice-fishing, so we followed one for awhile. The boys enjoyed getting down on their knees and pushing the snow aside to look at the ice and try to see fish. They didn't see any. We also followed some cross country ski tracks and trudged through mid-calf/knee/thigh high (depending on how tall one is) snow to leave the lake and go to the beach playground, a favorite summer destination. The snow at the beach playground was higher than at Perry Park and much more solid and wind-packed from the wind crossing the lake. We didn't stay for too long as the wind was indeed blowing across the lake and it felt much cooler than it did when we were more sheltered.

So we made our way back home, Abby enjoyed quite a long piggy-back ride while we were on the lake and Matthew's energy was waning by that time so he got a piggy-back ride too. However, when we reached the parking lot all the kids found some new energy and had a lot of fun climbing up and sliding down the piles of snow from the parking lot being cleared. Then we crossed the road again and Sam and Abby wanted to walk while Matthew wanted to lay down in the wagon. That lasted for a short while, then all the kids wanted to be in the wagon. That lasted a short while then I had the boys get out and walk and pulled Abby alone. There was no way I was going to pull all three of the up the hill back to Perry Park. That is one tough hill under normal circumstances, but when snow covered it is brutal.

So we made our way back to the playground at Perry Park and Abby was quite distraught when I passed the playground without playing, but we had been out for two hours by that time and I was ready to get home. Matthew did not protest and Sam ran ahead of us and got in a final slide before heading home. Then we got back in the van and went home and the kids are sleeping very well tonight.

New sleeping arrangements

The boys got bunk beds two weeks ago. We were needing to get Matthew a bigger bed, since he was still in his crib/toddler bed from when he was a baby, and decided to get bunk beds rather than a separate bed for Matt. Reason being that Sam and Matthew would often sleep together (either in Sam's bed or Sam would sleep in Matthew's room on the floor) because Sam has a bad case of the "scares" in which he's scared of everything and doesn't want to go to sleep. The boys enjoy each other's company and don't keep each other up too much, so we thought a bunk bed would be fun and maybe alleviate the "scares". So we got the beds put together to much fanfare and got the boys off to bed a few weeks ago. When we checked on them on that first night, Matthew had moved his blanket and pillow up to the top bed and was sleeping with Sam. Sam's head was on one end and Matthew's was on the other. There was also a jumble of books between the two of them.

In the morning I asked Matthew why had slept with Sam and he told me he had a bad dream. I then said that he could sleep on his own bed that night, rather than with Sam as his bad dream was done. He then replied that he hadn't finished his dream and would need to sleep with Sam again. So he slept with Sam again and that has been the arrangement these past two weeks. They get to sleep probably a little later than they did before sharing a room, but the disruption isn't really too much and they get up at about their normal time. However, now when they get up, Sam doesn't come in our room and Matthew doesn't (always) scream for us, they play with eachother until their clock turns yellow. Mostly they're quiet with they're playing, so it's really been quite a good deal for everyone involved.

But the "scares" have returned for Sam, despite Matthew's presence. He has fears of the closet, of certain books, of dark rooms down the hall (like Jason and my bedroom), and of other random house noises. It doesn't seem to be quite as bad as before, but I guess that's just the age he's at for now. Regardless, they boys love their "new" room and sleeping arrangement. We wonder how long they'll want to share a bed, and even how long they'll want to share a room. For now, they love it and it makes all of our lives a little bit happier.

What do we do?

During the summer I always wonder how we manage to make it through the winter when we spend 4+ hours a day outside in the summer. What do we do with those extra 4 hours of inside time in the cold winter months? Well, somewhere we manage and it really isn't too bad. We get outside if its over 20, although it hasn't gotten that warm too often lately. All the kids love to go outside and although our yard is flat, we have quite large piles of snow on the sides of the driveway these days, so the kids sled down those. One day last week, Sam ventured out further into the yard and got quite scared when he sunk into the snow up to his thigh. The boys do a pretty good job of holding the sled on top of the snow pile, so Abby can climb on and go for a ride with them.

On days when we don't go outside, the kids manage to find all sorts of other diversions for themselves. There's lots of fort building and jumping on cushions, blankets and pillows in the basement. There is also a lot of running around in circles through the kitchen, around the dining room table, around the couches and around and around again. The purpose of the running is varied, sometimes they're pretending they are planes racing, other times they are cars and other times they are cheetahs or monsters. All of the kids like to join in the racing fun and it is pretty much a daily ritual that the circle-running occurs after dinner for about 10 minutes or so, but it also occurs randomly during the daytime.

They also find lots of fun things to do with the stairs such as riding Matthew's mattress down the stairs, lining up 3 couch cushions end to end from the top of the stairs to the bottom and using them as a slide, and making a blanket into a cocoon around them and sliding bumpity-bump that way. I remember bumpity-bumping down the stairs in blankets as kids and wow, I have no desire to try that anymore, although the mattress and cushion sliding is a lot of fun.

We also do a fair number of art projects, puzzles, coloring, science experiments, reading and playing on the computer and playing other games (Sam is into Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, and Chess these days). We've played Yahtzee four times over the last week and in every game Sam has gotten a Yahtzee. How does that happen? Really? Four Yahtzees? He has beat me mightily in every game and now thinks he's a Yahtzee master. Well anyway, somehow we make it to the end of each day and we haven't gone crazy (at least not on most days), no one has gotten too hurt and we are fine. And the days are getting longer and soon the snow will be gone and we'll be outside for hours once again. But for now, we resume our winter activities.

Snowboarding

Despite the flat topography of our back yard, the grading away from the house provides just enough of a slope to allow the kids to try out snowboarding on their sleds. And the path from the house to Jason's backyard is a perfect track for their endeavors. I think real snowboarding might be in our future soon.

Christmas

Well, almost a month after the fact, I'm finally writing about Christmas. We had a great holiday except for traveling down to Iowa which was snowy, slippery, stressful and much longer than it's supposed to be. This is the third bad Christmas travel to Iowa in five years, so we just aren't having good luck with that (other than we've safely arrived every time). Christmas Eve was at Ken and Cheri's and after church (where Abby wasn't the best behaved, but the boys were exceptionally good), we enjoy appetizers and plenty of presents at Grammy and Papa's. We decided to spend the night over there and that was a fun change. Everyone slept pretty well and it was a nice, relaxing way to spend our Christmas Eve and morning.

Then it was the drive to Iowa which I've already mentioned, and Christmas dinner and festivities at Grandpa Duane and Grandma Verna's. This is the first holiday where Abby has been okay with being away from me for a period of time and doesn't throw a fit when someone other than our immediate family tries to talk to her or hold her. How far we've come in the last year. We opened more gifts and had dinner with Grandpa Don and Grandma Sue the next day and with Grandma Sue's side of the family the day after that. It was a whirlwind of Christmas activities, and fortunately it was nice enough for some playing outside in the snow too (although there wasn't too much snow, just enough for riding around on the sled behind the four-wheeler which Matthew loved, but Sam wouldn't try).

Here are a few pictures from our family Christmas at home.

Observations on laundry

Today I did a lot of laundry and I noticed some peculiarities in our laundry which I've had on my radar for awhile. The first peculiarity is that when I'm done doing laundry (and I'm very thorough), Sam has maybe one (or no) pairs of underwear and socks in the clean laundry. The other thing is that Matthew has an inordinate amount of underwear and socks in the clean laundry. I have a few ideas on what is going on. My first idea is that Sam is not changing his underwear at all or very little between launderings (which generally happens every four days or so). The second idea is that Matthew is changing his underwear and socks more frequently than what would generally be considered normal. Another idea is that Sam is changing his underwear, but hiding it somewhere where I'm not finding it on laundry day. Hmmm. Usually his laundry is in plain sight (strewn across his floor), but perhaps he's hiding some of it for some silly reason. Another idea is that Sam is wearing Matthew's underwear which would account for both unusual laundry observations. As of now, I'm not exactly clear on what's going on, although I have a strong inkling it's idea #1 and I need to be a bit more aware of Sam's changing habits.