Not even two minutes after my last post, I heard the wailing screams of Blessing #3. I heard his feet running through the kitchen. I heard B#2 say, “You’re bleeding!”

Yep, there was definitely blood. Lots of it.

That’s what those head wounds do- Spew blood. Spew large volumes of blood.

Apparently, being interrupted in conversation, a frustrated B#5 “accidentally” stabbed B#3 in the head with a pair of scissors. Big sharp ones. The “adult” scissors, as they’re known in our house.

It looked bad, especially with blood spraying all down his face, his hand grabbing his head, his clothes, his feet, the kitchen floor. The kitchen floor really looked like a terrible, messy crime scene.

I put lots of pressure on the gash, and the bleeding finally slowed. It was a bad cut, but I didn’t know if it needed stitches or not. I called the doctor and made another “emergency” visit (recall the recent bead-crammed-up-nostril incident) to have the triage nurse check it out. I was told on the phone that if it required stitches we’d have to go to the emergency room. I was hoping instead for the butterfly bandaid fix.

The nurse calls us back to take a look at it. She hasn’t even gotten her exam gloves all the way on when she says it most definitely needed stitches. I say, “A butterfly bandaid won’t work?”

Nope.

As I’m starting to prepare my mindset for the trip to the ER with all the kiddos in tow, she says she’s going to talk to the doctor about it.

The doctor comes to the exam room, takes a look and says that he thinks he can save me a trip to the ER. He attempts to “stitch” the wound closed with B#3’s own hair-- knotting together the hair from both sides of the gash which holds it closed and then super-gluing the knot, but the hair closer to the ear wasn’t quite long enough to cooperate.

But there was no trip to the ER. No stitches. No shaved head for stitches.

Instead we came home with a souvenir stapler… and a staple remover to get the staples out of his noggin in a couple weeks.

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Blessing #2 was in the newspaper this week-
surprised and excited to be in there like B#1 was!

Fortunately our family is in the paper for pleasant, happy, smiley events and not for terribly careless, embarrassing, frowny events... such as the unfortunate meeting of bumper and concrete block...

And the subsequent hiding of this Monkey Moma and Blessing #6 around the corner of the building while the monkey bus was stuck in the middle of the library parking lot (because such scenes do tend to create a sea of curious onlookers)...

While awaiting the arrival of the Monkey Daddy in his pick-up...

Who was, though out of complete necessity, illegally transporting five monkeys with him...

Because all carseats were, of course, in the bus...

Sure it's a five hundred-foot light pole. But, to my credit, it was hidden in that narrow little blind spot where the car frame goes between the driver's window and the windshield.

And it was in that little blind spot because I was swerving to avoid hitting a young child readjusting my course of driving after beginning to turn into a parking space that was occupied by an unseen motorcycle.

Sure I was only driving like 7.2 mph... but that didn't stop the fender from bending in to the tire.

Thus rendering the vehicle undriveable.
Thus rendering me STUCK.

So much for going to the library and the grocery store to browse and shop in peace with only one little booger by my side (the one little booger who would have slept through the entire trip). Oh no. No, instead I had to politely reply to the questions all the while internally grimacing at the fact that this did not happen in a remote and isolated parking lot, but smack dab in front of the library.

Where everyone coming goes in.

Where everyone inside looks out.

Where everyone leaving goes out.

And if a semi-abandoned Suburban at the entrance of the library didn't draw enough attention in itself, it only got more exciting when Monkey Daddy arrived with his crowbar and assortment of other big metal tools.

Metal tools on metal fender (and squealing monkeys inside the truck) make for really loud audio accompanyment to the apparently very interesting visual...

And encourage commenting.

You need any help?
Can I call someone?
Do you need me to call anyone?
Everything okay?
Is everything all right?
Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?
Glory me!
Heavens to sweet Betsy!
Oh dear!
What is this?
What has happened?
You want me to try that? I'm Icelandic and women from Iceland are very strong.

Alas, the fender was finally unbent off of the tire, and the troop made it home...

Sans any quiet, peaceful browsing and shopping for Monkey Moma.

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MOMMY BANDAIDS

Blessing #2 has been busy with her purse project. Apparently she salvaged a couple collapsed boxes from the recycle pile, reconstructed them, and attached handles. I overheard her talking about the purses with B#4.

“Your purse has an ugly box (brown pasta box) with a pretty strap (pink satin ribbon), and my purse has an ugly strap (old piece of rope) with a pretty box.”

B#3 is listening to the conversation, and he chimes in: “Your pretty box is one of Moma’s bandaid boxes. It had mommy bandaids in it. See? I can tell by looking at the picture. That’s Moma’s box, and those are bandaids in the picture.”

This confuses me, as I don’t get the whole bandaid thing, but I let it slide. I’ll figure it out later… “later” being when the girls pass through the kitchen toting their new purses.

Meanwhile, B#3 and I, with a little help from B#6, had our own little project going on this afternoon. We were busy baking tortilla chips. The other blessings were all in the living room building Barbie mansions out of the wooden blocks.

Mid-chip baking, B#2 brings a crying B#5 to me. B#5 has gotten a stuffy nose. Unfortunately he wasn’t suffering from allergies or a cold. Rather, he was suffering from the yellow, unidentified object he had shoved up his right nostril.

After unsuccessfully attempting to dislodge it (via pinky nail, mini-tweezers, the baby’s suction bulb, and “Blow your nose!”), I finally called the doctor’s office.

The rest of the afternoon boils down to this:

I load the six kids into the monkey bus and remind them, while we’re driving, that the doctor’s office is not a playground and we will ALL act appropriately.

THE WAITING ROOM

Her naptime disrupted, B#6 almost immediately starts to fuss. I insert soothie into her mouth. She spits soothie out of her mouth.

Fussing continues.

I reinsert and wiggle soothie in her mouth.
*suck, suck, spit*
Fussing continues.

This process repeats itself for quite a while. I finally succumb to her wailing and get Miss Crabby out of the carseat.

Fussing continues… only now it is moving around the waiting room, as she is in my arms.

B#2 has a toy that another kid wants. I hear the other kid’s mom saying, “No, honey, give it back to her. She had it first.” Yes, B#2 had it first, but B#2 is also seven and this other kid is like one. I give B#2 "the eye"- the one that says "let the baby have the toy."

B#1 half-jogs (something akin to the 6 a.m. speedwalkers at the mall) to the water cooler at the far side of the waiting room. This has been purposely placed in a somewhat remote area that is as far from the “kid” section as possible. B#1 knows she must be quick because she also knows I will probably stop her.

She is right.

Baby in arms, still fussing, I do my own mall-speedwalker-dash and stop her as she’s filling her little paper cup. I stop her... but not before B#5 has seen where she’s gone and what she’s doing.

As he is quite fascinated by wiggling the little levers that dispense water, I spend the next ten minutes dragging him back to the kid area and redirecting his attention.

B#4 is squawking because she does not want help stacking the puzzle blocks on the puzzle-block pegs. She’s got lots of help with B#s 1, 2, 3, and 5… thus, lots of squawking. I have to hush her and shoo the others away to other things.

B#s 2 and 3 are reading and playing the miniature I SPY book. This fun soon becomes a more competitive interaction, as each hurries to be the first to locate the hidden objects.

“FOOTBALL! There’s the football!”
“I see a golden ring. GOLDEN RING! Right there! See?”
“Oh,oh! Look! I found the pearly smile!”
“I already found that first!”

The nurse calls us back. We pass the doc in the hallway. He looks up B#5’s nose and says, “I think you could get that out of there. Did you try blowing it out?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But when I said ‘blow’ he’d just sniffle it in farther up.”

(At the time I misinterpreted his question… I understand now.)

My little munchkins and I follow the nurse into the exam room.

THE EXAM ROOM

As the nurse is asking me the basic appointment questions for B#5, B#1 is standing next to me and proceeds to authoritatively answer her questions.

Nurse: We’ve got a foreign object in the nose?
B#1: Yes.
Nurse: Any allergies?
B#1, shaking her head: No. No allergies.

As the nurse turns her head to input her notes, I tell B#1 to go sit down and hush.

Doc comes into the room, interrupting the nurse during this intake process. He says again that he thinks I could probably get this out of his nose myself and offers to hold B#6, still fussing, while I try.

“Sure,” I say. I hand over Miss Crabby.

Doc coaches me through removal-of-foreign-object-in-child’s-nose.*

Doc realizes that the triage nurse had not instructed me, over the phone, of the ROFOICN method, and when we later leave the exam room, he finds said nurse and instructs her to instruct said method upon future phone calls.

The foreign object is no longer foreign. It has been identified as a square, yellow bead.

Doc says we’re free to go.

I can see by the nurse’s expression that she does not know what to do in this unusual situation. Doc takes the fee slip from her, says “I’ll take care of that,” and then answers her confused look with a grin and a “Mom got it out; I didn’t get it out” as he puts an X across the top of the fee slip, writes “no charge,” and signs it.

*The ROFOICN method:

-Squeeze child’s unobstructed nostril closed.
-Cover child’s mouth with own mouth.
-Blow forcefully until lodged object dislodges, flies out of child’s nostril, and ricochets off your shoulder.
-Scramble to capture bouncing object… so you can take a picture of it.
-Wipe away any boogers that may also dislodge and adhere to your cheek.

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Blessing #1 made today's paper!

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details

It could just be a dog thing, but I figure it's more likely just a Zacchaeus thing.

Some dogs might grab that chicken bone and take cover under the table.

Some dogs might grab that forbidden candy bar and hide behind the couch.

Not my guy. No way. He's got some serious (and colorful), albeit secret, food preferences.

Like crayons.
And ear plugs.
And ponytail holders. Especially the small, fuzzy ones.

How do I know of these hugger-mugger eating habits?
Well, I help scoop the poop... and it's often of the rainbow variety.
'Nough said.

This evening, Blessing #2 was drawing the family room. You'll see that, in addition to her lovely portrait of B#1 cradling B#6, she's also sketched the background details... the couch, the pillows, the quilt, the pictures, the newspaper ads, the flip-flops, the dog.

"Super!" I tell her. "Impressive!" "Excellent job!"

"Yeah," she says. And then, matter-of-factly adding, "Zacchie was even licking himself while I was drawing him."

"Oh?" I ask to see the sketch again, this time focusing more attention on the dog.

Now, isn't that a remarkable example of B#2's superb attention to details! (And just lovely that Zacchaeus held his pose long enough for her to accurately capture the moment.)

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