It's always entertaining when you have a large family, and doubly so when you have small children in the large family.
Abram was following Mom up the stairs as she carried a load of laundry, and fell down the stairs. His brothers rescued him from the bottom of the stairs, and brought him up crying, and bleeding from a large split on his bottom lip.
We stemmed the tide of blood with a cold washcloth, and the little dude calmed down, and ate some stew for lunch. A few minutes after he was finished eating, I looked at him, and thought he looked different somehow.
Then it hit me. "Buddy, where's your tooth?!". A quick search down the stairs found the tooth, root and all, sitting on the step. We placed a quick call to the dentist, and found that he has just advanced himself about 4 years, when the new adult tooth will grow in. So for the next 4 years, he'll be missing his right top front tooth.
It looked pretty strange for a while, since I was used to seeing him with a full set of chicklets, but it's starting to grow on me now.
That was two weeks ago... This past week, we headed south to Calgary for Tanya's cousins funeral, a sad time to be sure. The next day, Liam's birthday, we headed back up to Edson... almost.
As we rounded the curve on the south end of Drayton Valley, with a water truck in the outside lane, and a pickup truck behind us, we met with Mrs. Deer. She was the fourth one across the road, and impacted squarely in the left front of the Suburban. As I watched pieces fly off to the left, I momentarily wondered if it was pieces of meat... but it was pieces of Suburban naturally.
After getting pulled over to the side of the road, I inspected the damage.
-Left front headlight - gone
-Left front signal light - gone
-Grille - smashed to bits
-Bumper- cracked and twisted
-Radiator - pushed back and leaking
-Automatic transmission fluid cooler - crushed and leaking-
-Hood - Bent back at the front
-Left fender- bent and dented
_who knows what else - broken to bits
Well, I guess we're done driving this rig tonight... After calling AMA, and getting the ball rolling on having it towed the 145km back to Edson, I visited with the nice police officer who stopped to make sure everything was all right and to start the accident report. What to do next.
-10C, with a truck that won't run. Could be getting cold soon. We called a cab, to take us in to Drayton Valley. 20 bucks later and two trips (they could only take 6 of us at a time) we were safely nestled in at A&W. Nobody even noticed that Dagmar had chickenpox. We ordered some food for the kids, and I called Pastor Steve to come with his minivan to pick us up.
Problems solved. Whew. Almost.
A few minutes later, a smell began to waft about the table, coming from the vicinity of Abram (2 years old). Poopy. Diapers and wipies were left in the Suburban... great. Kennedy, liam, Dagmar and I headed out to Walmart, just a couple cold snowy blocks away. The sidewalk wasn't bad, but cutting through the deep snow to get to the Walmart parking lot, was a bit refreshing, and Dagmar's shoes weren't going to cut it, so she rode on my shoulders. After getting the smallest bag of diapers they had (still huge by the way) and wipies, I decided that there was no way we were going to get them back to A&W without a backpack of some sort.
So armed with the new backpack, diapers, wipies, and with Dagmar on my shoulders we trekked back to the A&W, changed the bum, and only had a moment or two before Pastor Steve arrived to take us back to Edson.
Now we wait... for I'm not sure how long, before we have wheels again. It's an interesting walk to the the grocery store, and you do have to plan what you're going to buy. But we have many friends and neighbours who are helping us out, and taking care of us, so this too shall pass with much less pain that one would anticipate.
We are so blessed, that Abram wasn't more badly hurt when he fell, that the suburban bore all the damage (well the suburban and the deer, poor thing), and that we are home safely.
You can actually feel God's love through this whole incident, and through his people.
In the words of tiny Tim,
God bless us, everyone.
