Taking Wednesday head on

It's the last Wednesday of the semester. Our children are tucked into their beds (with three of the five suffering from mild head trauma; it's fine) and Andrew is on his way home. And I'm just so relieved that the end of the semester is here.

I suppose I should explain that head trauma before we go much farther.

Grandpa and I tag-teamed a buttermilk pancake dinner (I made the batter, he cooked them up), then sent Miriam off to Activity Days. The remaining kids and I walked down to the train park to toss around a frisbee. It was rather windy, as it often is here, and the wind kept grabbing our hot pink disc and whirling it up ridiculously high into the air (which was fine because our playing "field" is a little bowl—with hills on all sides—so the frisbee couldn't get too far away).

I spotted Alexander heading for a discarded juice box that I didn't want him to play with, so I picked it up and jogged it down to the trashcan (PSA, fellow Americans: you, too, can put trash into the trashcan!). While I was doing that, Rachel tossed the frisbee and Benjamin and Zoë both went for it and collided head-on. They both sat down, howling and holding their heads, and blaming each other for not letting the other have any turns.

They both have a little goose egg but were able to calm down fairly quickly and we worked out a turn-taking system and all was well.

Soon it was time to head home so that Rachel could head over to the church where the youth were playing flag football for mutual. I assumed Rachel was having fun because she's into that sort of thing.

I never was, not really. I was always a...delicate...child.

I wasn't prone to illness, I don't think, but I was just...small. Wafer-thin. Gangly. Awkward. Whatever.

I didn't excel at team sports.




Rachel's assertive on the field and she's able to hold her ground. She has always fought for equal rights to the soccer ball at recess (because girls definitely play soccer, too), knows the rules to football, and has been known to spend hours shooting hoops with her friends.

So when she came through the front door, I asked her if she had a good time and was surprised when she choked out a gurgled, "No!"

She stumbled up the stairs and into my arms, where she cried and cried until I told her that she had a bloody nose and we should maybe find a tissue for that...and then she asked to take a shower.

Poor girl collided with a rather big boy (the leader who texted me wasn't quite sure who), ricocheted off of him, and landed on her face on the pavement. I was rather worried about her because she couldn't stop crying (even after a shower) because her head hurt so badly and she remarked she was feeling dizzy. But I just went in to talk with her because I heard her up in her bed and she said she's feeling much better. I gave her a little quiz on random facts and she got nearly everything right, except for the questions she rolled her eyes about and told me she wouldn't have known the answer to anyway.

I think this was the first time she's wanted me to pick her up and hold her for quite a long time. But I couldn't because suddenly she's an adult-sized human. I don't really know what to do with adult-sized children—just rub their back and put an arm around them, I guess.

I'm so glad this Wednesday is over. So glad the semester is over.

But don't worry—I won't stay relieved for long because I have such a knack for stressing out about life. We have approximately 10 weeks left before we move. And we still have to buy a house. So...there will be plenty to stress about about.

Starting tomorrow.