Wood, scissors, valium - in that order

No, I'm not just making up random titles for the blog, I have invented a new game, like "rock, scissors, paper". Let's see if you can guess why I chose those three words....

We had a very eventful weekend planned, so I took Friday off to catch up on the mountains of laundry to be washed and the bazillion dust bunnies that seem to be invading the house. So, Thursday night as I drove back from class, I made a long, mental list of the things I needed to accomplish on Friday.

1. Get up
2. Get coffee
3. Get my butt in gear and start laundry
4. Get more coffee
5. While laundry is going, dust downstairs
6. More coffee
7. More laundry
8. Vacuum
9. More laundry
10. Straighten up
11. Prepare and clean guest bedroom for weekend guests
12. Fold clean laundry and put away (this is my downfall - it's washed, it's dried, it's even folded. It's taking it out of the laundry and actually inserting it into the appropriate drawer or closet that gets me every time)
13. Clean bathrooms (blech - I HATE cleaning bathrooms. I don't care how clean it looks. People pee in there. Gross.)

And so on, and so forth. It's an hour drive. I can plan alot in that time.

I walk through the door that evening to a frantic husband, a 5 year old who's running to me trying to tell me something, and an 8 year old screaming in the bathroom.

I already know that my Friday has been shot to hell. I just don't know why yet.

Brian tells me as he's running a towel under water and grabbing an assortment of peroxide, bandages, tweezers and a razor blade (a what???) that Olivia has the biggest splinter he's ever seen and he can't get it out of her big toe.

That's what this is about? A splinter?

I now know why my daughter is screaming hysterically, since she's one of those kids who freaks out when she gets a splinter and we have to take it out. It's Oscar time in the Henry house when that happens. You'd think we were pulling out her teeth with pliers. My little drama queen.

So I go into the bathroom to see what all the commotion is about and to "take care of it". I walk over and look at Liv's big toe.

The rest is a blur. Pretty sure I blacked out for a few minutes.

There, embedded in her toe was a chuck of wood the size of a Popsicle stick and she was bleeding like a stuck pig. I don't do blood. Nor was I all that crazy about the 2 x 4 sticking out of her foot.

After I got myself together so she wouldn't see how freaked out I was, we went to work. For about 45 minutes. And we couldn't get the damn thing out. We got a few big pieces, but it was so big, and so deep, that there was no way anyone but a doctor was getting that thing out. So we bandaged her foot, gave her some ibuprofen and put her to bed.

The next morning, her toe was red, puffy and oozing. Not good. I made a doctor appointment (I'm pretty sure they were laughing at me when I told them she had a splinter the size of Manhattan in her toe and I couldn't get it out).

I frantically tried to get some of the things done on my list before going to the doctor. When we got there, the nurse took one look at Liv's toe and moved us to the "procedure" room. Gulp. Two different doctors looked at her toe and they both decided that the splinter was so deep, the only way for them to get it out was cut her toe open, dig around, pull out the remaining peices and stitch it back up. The other alternative was to put her on antibiotics since it was getting infected, soak her foot in Epsom salt water 5 times a day, keep it bandaged and let nature take its course. I chose that option. Especially when Doc told me he wouldn't put his kids through that sort of pain when the body will eventually work out the foreign objects its own.

So off we go to the pharmacy to get the medicine and Epsom salts. And did I mention that it was Friday and dance camp started on Monday? Yup. Great.

We get back home, it's now 5:30, I'm a quarter of the way through my list, have guests arriving the next morning, a full day of picnics and parties the next afternoon and evening, have no idea what I'm going to do for dinner and quite frankly am wondering if the tree really will make it out of her foot on it's own.

And that's when my adorable little 5 year old, who finally got all of her hair to one length, which was cut into a cute little bob, skips by me saying "Hi Mommy!"

With bangs.

In her hair.

SHE HAS BANGS!

And they are scraggly, uneven and now extend part of the way around her head.

Have you figured out where the "Valium" comes in?