Shelf Fell off Sydney's wall
It was either Thursday night, Friday night, or Saturday morning but at some point, Meghan did some re-arranging of Sydney's room. One thing she attempted to do was to put a few kids books on the shelf that used to hold all of Sydney's stuffed animals (before they had to be relocated because she was afraid of them at night). After putting just a couple books on the shelf, it came crashing down right into Sydney's bed. Apparently the brackets holding up the shelf were made of particle board. It was nice hard pressed particle board, but particle board none the less. The screws themselves were safely embedded in the wall studs, but over the last 3 years, the brackets had been slowly weakening under pretty much the load of the shelf itself.
Had Sydney been in bed when that shelf came down, it's pretty safe to say that she would have been badly hurt.
Sadly, these were the very nice looking white shelving brackets that most people would probably pick up at the hardware store. In any case, all of the brackets in her room have now been replaced by steel.
Partially Black Eye
On Sunday, I took Sydney to the park after her nap. It was really too cold, but we needed to get out of the house. We hadn't been to the park since last fall so that was the day. Shortly after we got there, the neighbor kids shows up and wanted to play. Sydney was in her shy warm up phase and ran off by herself. While the other girls did their thing, Sydney climbed up and went down the big red slide. ...and right off the end of it onto the ground. Apparently she forget how to stop herself over the winter. When she fell off, she immediately started crying.
I rolled my eyes thinking she was being a drama queen, went over, and tried to ascertain what was wrong. She kept gesturing at her cheek and saying she hit it. She had a red spot, but I didn't think much of it. I actually thought she had poked it with her finger. In the end, I picked her up, carried her back to the top of the slide, and went down with her giving her a bear hug. She was laughing by the time we got to the bottom.
When we got home, he cheek was red, and I started thinking, "uh oh". It was getting redder. Sydney rarely wants to do anything with me anymore, and as soon as I get her having fun, I bring her home damaged.
This morning, she had a slight bruise forming under her left eye right next to where she hit it. Meghan wondered if the cop in Dunkin Donuts was going to question her regarding abuse. Fortunately no questions were asked and the bruise is already fading.
There's no breathing in my leg
Ok... let me start off by saying there is no way I can do this story justice. It involves a combination of panic, relief, confusion, bewilderment, and probably a few other emotions.
Last night, Sydney was sitting on the floor working a puzzle. Meghan was sitting in a chair nearby watching her. I was on the couch across the room. Suddenly, Sydney just started crying out of nowhere, tried to get up and was leaning on Meghan. The exchange went something like this:
Sydney: *Starts Crying*
US: Sydney, what's wrong
Sydney (crying): I can't breathe.
US (panicked and giving this full attention): What?! Why can't you breathe?. What's wrong?
Sydney (holding her leg): My leg hurts.
US: What?! You can't breath and your leg hurts? What happened?
Sydney: There's no breathing in my leg.
US: What?!
So after a brief game of charades and some Q&A, we figured out that her leg had fallen asleep while she was sitting on the floor. This had apparently never happened to her before, and she didn't know what was wrong or how to explain it to us. Within 15 minutes we had her settled down, in jammies, and back to working the puzzle.
I will never forget the quote "There's no breathing in my leg" though.