Merry Christmas

Fun at the park

The first weekend home from our flood induced living in the mountains, M's cousin came to visit us with his two boys.  The kids spent some time hanging out at the park and playing together, while the adults talked about their flood experiences.

Run in with a tooth

The first week of the flood, the Y offered childcare during the day since the school was in the no-flush zone and not open for education although open for children needing a safe place while parents cleaned up debris and other things from the flood.  Since we were living at the Y, it made perfect sense for me to be involved in the Y's childcare.  So on Thursday while playing in the gym, I had a collision with an older friend. M got a call at 10:30 from my counselors saying there had been an accident, but that I had been cleaned up.  I had a cut on my head and the other girl lost half her tooth.  When she saw me at lunch and looked under the bandage, it was decided that the wound looked a little big and needed some doctor attention.  When she picked me up, I had the butterfly bandage covered with another bandage.

I was very brave as I waited for the doctor to take a look at my cut.

Since the butterfly bandage had been on the cut for about 4 hours by the time the doctor was able to see me, he decided that I didn't need stitches, just a few steri strips.

I was a little worried as the nurse prepped my wound to be cleaned and covered.

All done and ready to heal (or so mother thought.....)

Monday morning, I woke up with an infection in my cut, as the human bite is the worst of all bites .  M and I headed back to the doctor, this time the pediatrics unit.    The nurse had to take the steri strips off and clean up my wound.  M was taught how to clean out my wound every morning and evening.

 The nurse even decorated the bandage for me and gave me a teddy bear for being so brave.  As the wound was now an open wound, I couldn't go swimming or anything to get it really wet.

 After two visits to two different doctors and five days, imagine M's surprise when Tuesday morning as she was cleaning out my wound, she noticed something white sticking out of the corner.  As she pulled it out, she realized it was the portion of tooth my friend had lost.    Look how big it was and it was in my head for five days!!

 M had to call the tooth fairy and ask her rules about a tooth falling out of a head, but not a mouth.  The tooth fairy said for all the pain and trauma I went through, that she would for sure come and visit me!  So I put the tooth, taped to the penny, under my pillow that night.

 The tooth fairy was very generous to me, to pay for all that I had been through.

 I was supposed to have school pictures that week, so I had picked out special stickers to wear on my bandage.  But due to some technical difficulties with the camera, it was postponed two weeks, by which time my wound had healed.  Don't I look cute with my little bandage, and my Pinkly Wiggly that I got as a present from the school, as one of the many displaced children in the district--having to live in a hotel due to flooding.

Bike Path

While M was home waiting to hear news about the flood in Estes Park and other areas of Colorado, she still had two very active little girls to entertain.  So on the beautiful, sunny September day we took our bikes out and went on a ride down the bike path.

M had promised me when I could ride around the neighborhood without falling off my bike, I could take a ride down the bike path.  I was very eager to try and ended up riding almost 5 miles all by myself.

Of course, we had to stop and take some water breaks along the way.