Saturday, May 30, 2015

Preschool Graduate

Thank you, everyone, for your concerned responses to my last post. I'm doing really well, all things considering. I think that if you must get hit by a semi-truck, you should get hit by one going in the same direction as you. I don't think I was jostled nearly as badly as you can get in even a relatively minor fender bender. Terrifying, of course, but mostly the truck just carried me along the highway wall until moving over enough for me to be allowed to stop. That's my explanation anyway because my car and I look like we were in two totally different accidents.

Wednesday was a crappy night. Despite enjoying every single second of Pitch Perfect 2, and the company of my friend and the glass of wine I go to sip throughout the movie, I simply could not sleep. I kept getting close to that sweet nothingness and then abruptly sitting straight up in bed with a scream in my throat, certain a huge truck was about to hit me. Then I'd roll over and hit the bruises on my shoulder from the seat belt and roll back over only to fell like my chest was being pressed by a very tight seat belt that wouldn't come off. My feet hurt, my shin scrapes hurt, my arm burns hurt, my hip was sore, and I could feel the exact outline of every millimeter of where my seat belt used to be. All I could think about was how badly I was going to feel in the morning and every twinge made me think it would be worse and worse.

I finally fell asleep around 5 a.m. (ugh) and was rudely awoken by an angry Cora at 6:30 minutes after JP went to swim practice. I tentatively approached my bathroom mirror to inspect what I was certain would be a bruised and battered me, but I pretty much just looked like me. And I almost even felt like me. The scrapes had faded quite a bit. The bruising wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. And the seat belt pressure remained just a phantom pain and nothing that was manifesting itself like the angry red lines I had seen when I closed my eyes at night. So that was good.

I took my 4th Epsom salt bath since the accident (the big $4 bags of Dr. Teal's Epsom Salts with Lavender from Target are my favorite thing ever; I sprinkle them in my bath every night, and for the last few nights it's been more of a generous heaping.) and got back in bed while JP went to Landon's school to cheer him on at field day (where I was supposed to be volunteering). Landon won the 50m dash and the hula hoop contest (we've never had a hula hoop and he kept going for NINE minutes. That is kind of forever.) for all of K-2nd grade. My work friends picked me up to go to lunch nearby, which was a lovely distraction, and then I slowly straightened up the house for Claire's big graduation and birthday weekend. My mom arrived about 2:00 and we went to Target to pick up the three new car sets I had ordered since mine were toasted. We then quickly picked up Landon and got him changed into a "fancy shirt" for Claire's preschool graduation program while I threw the girls clothes and snacks in a bag to take to their school.

Claire was SO excited about her program and having her Gigi come see here. I was excited because it meant Gigi could drive me around (I have yet to get behind the wheel again and am not excited to do so) and JP had lessons until 6:00 and wasn't sure he could make it to the program in time.

Cora was excited to see her Gigi too.


this is the lady who feeds me ice cream

When it came time for the Primary class to perform, Claire marched out on the stage like she owned it. Because she did.


They performed "America the Beautiful" and a cute song called "Kindergarten We're On Our Way!".


She's been at Angel longer than any of our kids have spent at any school, and it was crazy to think about her on stage each May for the last few years, like in 2013 performing Take Me Out to the Ballgame.


We love our little school and the only thing that kept me from crying was knowing Cora had four more years to go there (which makes me want to tear up for entirely different, tuition-based reasons).

She got her certificate and her backpack with her name on it (an Angel tradition; Landon still has his) and joined her friends on the stage.


She'll be young for her grade, but she is SO ready for Kindergarten. She was ready on the day we dropped Landon off two years ago.


I always feel like I should be more sentimental at these kinds of events, but honestly, I'm just so excited for her. I adored every year of school and Landon has done absolutely amazingly well at our little local public school and I just know Claire is going to thrive there as well. She's just ready.


JP had an emergency at the pool, so he wasn't able to make it, which was too bad, but we got a modified family picture with Gigi.


And then he and his Clairebear got one together after we all went out to dinner.


And so that was Thursday. On Friday I decided to teach my barre class. I really didn't feel too badly as long as I avoided certain positions and I thought it would be a good idea to move, and mostly, I just wanted to feel like myself. Barre is me. My mom came to class, so I got to teach her, which was super fun, and then we got dressed and shopped for 8 hours of so. Or maybe 4. But we gave ourselves a workout and a few new items for our closets. As it happened, Friday afternoon was our day to bring Landon's birthday treats to school (his teacher gives the birthday kids a pretend birthday towards the end of the year so they can celebrate), so mom got to participate in that too! He requested donuts and we were there to hand them out and watch him wear a grin a mile wide while classmates serenaded him. I can't believe he's going to be 8 in July.

Today my mom leaves and I have to finally pick up my rental car and commit to driving again. We're hosting Claire's birthday party tomorrow and there's too much to do. And Landon's birthday party is next weekend. And sometime between now and then we should finally hear from the insurance company about my car. New bruises have popped up each morning while the scrapes and burns have faded, but I really in no way look like a semi-truck picked a fight with me just a few days ago. (A semi-truck that remains anonymous; no one else reported it and he's probably in Kansas by now, or wherever he was going at top speed.)

1 comment:

  1. My husband was in a similar accident a couple of years ago - the driver cut over two lanes in an attempt to make an exit and pushed his car off the road in the process. He broke a rib, we think on the center console, and his car was scraped entirely down the right side and had a huge smashed-in spot on the right where he'd been spun into a sign post, facing the opposite direction. The truck driver DID stop though. It's scary to think that with slightly different timing he could have been spun UNDER the truck.

    I hope the healing keeps happening quickly and the flashbacks fade just as quickly.

    ReplyDelete