A 'Cut' Above

I ought to clarify why we believe Aslynn is accident-proned.

We always assumed that Micah would be the first to darken the doors of a hospital, not sweet little Aslynn. He's rambunctious, ambitious, creative, wild, daring, adventurous, and will jump off most anything without much hesitation - from whatever height he has climbed to. Aslynn, on the other hand, is just the follower. And maybe that's the real issue here. She has few inhibitions and is herself a smaller package that is 'slightly' less coordinated. It's kinda like the old Star Trek episodes where ensign #5 always beams down with the landing party and gets eaten because hey, let's face it, we all need someone we can run faster than in case of a bear attack in space...

BUT - Micah takes good care of her and she usually doesn't get hurt with him around (go figure). She's usually doing her own thing when trouble strikes.

Prime example: her first trip to the hospital. We had a couple from our church over with their two girls who are roughly the age of our children. The adults are playing a game downstairs when we hear a BANG and shattering of glass accompanied with crying. By the time Faith had finished her turn (AS IF!) and ascended the stairs, there was blood everywhere. She tells it better than I do. Aslynn had knocked a crystal/glass candy dish off of the back of the toilet and it had been dashed into little pieces everywhere. Aslynn (we think) grabbed a piece of the glass in an attempt either to mend the dish or hide the evidence and had gashed open her right thumb at the joint. We cleaned and wrapped her up, made a make-shift bandage, and finished the game. We thought she would be okay. She wasn't bleeding profusely.

When the company left, we re-evaluated the situation and thought a trip to the hospital wouldn't hurt. They may be able to bandage her up better anyway. Faith went. Two hours later, the two girls returned after three stitches. Apparently the nurses were all enamoured by the little girl behind the curtain giggling away while she waited. They said it was the best sound they'd heard all night, probably all week, too. They wrapped her up held her down, stitched her up and sent her home. The little bandage was cute, but she's cute enough without it.

Aslynn still hasn't had a really good shiner yet, but there's still time. Yesterday she crawled into somewhere she shouldn't be and scratched her back when she stood up coming out. Tonight when I was changing the gauze she kept saying, "Hot, peese cawfuw Daddy, bandad." Hot, please careful Daddy, bandage.

Yup, I guess you could say she takes after her old man. Last December I was shingling my shed roof and I only had six shingles to go. The utility knife skipped off the shingle and set part-way through the tip of my thumb. I removed the knife, looked, said "Oh, great", climbed off the roof, and into the house. The kids were asleep upstairs and I had no vehicle. Faith was working at OCC so I called her mom who wasn't home, and as a last resort called her sister Joy (who occasionally faints at the sight of blood).

I wrapped my flapping thumb in a towel and proceeded to clean up as much blood as possible while I waited for Joy to arrive. There was a lot of cleaning to do! When she arrived I commandeered her car, drove myself to Emerg, waited a couple of minutes, and Faith arrived shortly before the stitches! Only four, but I needed more. The stitches pulled through when I was volunteering with Faith at OCC a week or two later and I again needed medical attention.

What can you do? She can't come by it naturally. It can't be genetic. Maybe its something we share in common as father and daughter. Or not. I don't know. What I do know is that the stories will get told and re-told and some people will laugh. It's okay. We can handle it. After all, we don't have any control over it! Like the time I had a piece of glass in my finger for months...

- Mark