All I Want for Christmas Is a Dull Moment

December 19, 2007 @ 5:20 pm | Filed under: Family Adventures

Well. It’s been quite an eventful couple of days here. (When is it not?)

Saturday: Wonderboy, O he of uncertain balance, took another tumble and lost three more teeth. Remember when he knocked out a front tooth at the playground? This time he outdid himself. Knocked out another top tooth and shoved two more up into his gum. (I’ll pause while you shudder.)

So now he’s got a four-tooth-wide gap up top, leaving just his pointy little fangs. I mean canines. I feel like Fudge’s mother.

This is just maybe going to make speech therapy kind of interesting for a while.

Sunday: Time for our family outing to the cut-your-own Christmas tree farm! But Scott, suffering some trauma from Wonderboy’s dental adventures, decided a field full of hidden stumps was not the best place for our accident-prone son. I stayed home with the two little ones and my mother, who was visiting from Colorado, and let Scott take the three older girls to hunt the mighty Christmas tree.

They came home with a fine tree…and a broken finger.

Jane, this time. What happened? She tripped over a tree stump in the field.

It’s just a minor buckle fracture, painful but not too serious. She made it to her piano recital this morning and played the right hand of the piece she’d been practicing almost incessantly for the past two months. Her good-natured piano teacher played the left hand, and it worked out fine.

She’s an angel in the Christmas pageant on Friday. I’m thinking we can ditch the splint and sling for the performance. Or else hide them under her heavenly robes.

(Panic! I have to make heavenly robes!)

I brought a tin of Christmas treats to the recital as a gift for the piano teacher. Some helpful soul unpacked my bag for me and thought, quite understandably, that it was a tin of treats for the party table. (For that, we had brought string cheese—Wonderboy’s favorite—and some of my mother’s famous cake.) Most of Miss Cyndi’s treats were gobbled up by small, hungry musicians, but she laughed over the mishap and said it was the thought that counts.

I hope she’s right, because the way this week is going, I don’t know how much more Christmas baking I’m going to get done. But I’ve thought about it. That counts! Right?

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  1. Christine M says:

    Yikes! What a week! What a shame about the piano recital - but it sounds like she came through like a trooper. Now, just put the lot of them in a big padded room until Christmas - and hope for the best!

  2. Amy says:

    Praying everyone recovers quickly! And praying you get your dull moment. :)

  3. Activities Coordinator says:

    We’ve had years like that.

    Hope everyone heals and you get some rest.

  4. patience says:

    You’ve already had my serious-minded and sincere prayers, so now you can have my laughter as well! I’m sorry, really, but it all sounds so tragically funny!

    How lovely to have your mother with you, especially considering she made cake.

    Wishing you a safe and peaceful Christmas.

  5. mamacrow says:

    the chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ does come to mind!

    heavenly robes - had to do this once and thankfully the school gave me a dead easy pattern. Piece of white material (old sheet will do)- fold in half.
    Each side should be long enough to reach from child’s neck to ankle.

    Cut slit in middle of fold for head - can round it out a bit if you like - I didn’t both to hem, just trimed it with tinsle (using glue).

    Then put it on your child and have them put both arms out to the side parallel to the ground. What you want is a curve cut from their wrist to their ankle. (hope you can visualise that).

    Then if you want you can tack a seam up either side to separate the body from these flappy wings, but up to you. I stuck tinsle round by the wrists too.

    Looks suprisingly good - a cute child in it helps of course :)

  6. sarah in va says:

    Lissa, what to say? I am so, so sorry. And all on your birthday weekend, too. Poor Wonderboy. If adversity makes us stronger, you all must be the strongest family alive. Sending many, many hugs your way.

    Two words for angelwear- white sheets and fabric glue (oops, I guess that’s four).

  7. Beth says:

    Poor Wonderboy! (And Jane!).

    I do hope everything is smoothing out.

  8. Samantha says:

    Maybe an angelic sling is in order? I thought I had a lot going on, but I’m going to go count my blessings now…

    Hugs!

  9. Cay says:

    OH, wow!
    I’m still shuddering. :( Hope next week is truly peaceful for you guys.

  10. Jeanne says:

    There was the year in Mississippi that it snowed. Mississippi houses not having basements like Virginia houses, our sleds were stowed in the attic. Snow-blinded teenager goes into attic to get never-needed-in-Mississippi sled (and probably didn’t take off his sunglasses, though we have avoided pinning him down with this terrible question), stepped OFF the floored portion of the attic and fell between rafters 16 feet into the great room below. Broke an arm on one side, a hand on the other side. Due to the height from which he fell, and his overall body ache, had to be packed up on a backboard and taken to the hospital on snow-covered Mississippi roads (if you want to see what panic looks like, just witness snow-covered Mississippi roads) in an ambulance, whose driver was quite perplexed about how to put chains on the ambulance for better traction.

    The CT Scan was all Good - the reaction to the morphine used while they set his bones, not so much.

    The Christmas pictures feature our exchange student from Ecuador and our oldest son in a hospital gown.

    I kept murmuring, “All is calm, all is bright.”

    Sounds to me like you’re due for a dull moment now. I know we were.

  11. Jennifer says:

    Ouch! I hope your week gets better!

  12. patience says:

    Me again. I suddenly thought how insensitive my comment probably sounded - what I meant was that you wrote it in such an amusing way. I doubt any of it was amusing at the time! I also wanted to add that I hope Wonderboy and Jane aren’t in any pain.

  13. Meredith says:

    Oh pooh, wishing you a VERY rest of Advent, we’ve got s couple of sick ones, just hoping for all healthy by next week :) Hugs to you all!

  14. Nicole Pahl says:

    Watch out…I hear trouble comes in 3’s! ;) By the way, you haven’t just started praying for more patience or an increase in faith have you? Those prayers lead to many interesting times!

  15. THE DAILY GROTTO says:

    Melissa,

    May you and your familyHave a Blessed Christmas. Things can only get better!
    Kathy

  16. THE DAILY GROTTO says:

    Melissa,

    May you and your familyHave a Blessed Christmas. Things can only get better!
    Kathy

  17. Cristina says:

    Yikes! I hope you have a very uneventful, Silent Night, Holy Night, sleep in heavenly peace Christmas!
    At least you can laugh about it! And don’t worry about your baking. You can always do it during the twelve days of Christmas.

    Peace and Laughter,
    Cristina

  18. Mary Beth P says:

    Lissa:
    So sorry about your difficult week. Praying that you have a peaceful Christmas! Hope the pageant goes well!

    Mary Beth

  19. Just Jen says:

    my goodness, I was stopping by to say Merry Christmas and now I’m praying you get a Merry Christmas! What a week!
    My youngest went through speech with the 4 front teeth missing…it was interesting!

  20. Lissa says:

    Patience,

    You didn’t sound insensitive at all! I definitely see the humor in our mishaps. If I didn’t, I’d have lost my mind a long time ago!

    I think it’s so funny that Scott didn’t take Wonderboy on the tree-cutting outing b/c he was afraid of another accident–and then it was Jane who had the very accident Scott was worried about. Oh the irony!

  21. mary mi says:

    ouch!
    For all of you…that sounds to painful to think about.
    Hope things are better this week and hope you have a merry Christmas too!
    God bless,
    mary ~

  22. Alice Gunther says:

    Well, I’ll tell you one thing that is NOT dull–your sense of humor!

    : ) : ) : )

  23. Abigail says:

    This post made me laugh until my eyes got teary. God Bless you- every one! Your excitement made our Christmas seem very tame.

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Book Log 09


The Ten-Year Nap
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The Uncommon Reader: A Novella
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World Made by Hand
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The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution
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How I Live Now
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The Great Turkey Walk
by Kathleen Karr
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The Trees Kneel at Christmas
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A Reader's Delight
by Neil Perrin
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Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton

The Ransom of Red Chief
by O. Henry
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Sign of the Beaver
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Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share
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Bend-the-Rules Sewing
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Understood Betsy
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The King's Fifth
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A Murder for Her Majesty
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Haystack Full of Needles
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The Highwaymen
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Number the Stars
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Swallows and Amazons
by Arthur Ransom

A Street in Marrakesh
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Knight's Castle
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(a sequel to Half Magic)



The Creative Family
by Amanda Soule

The Losers (Vol.1): Ante Up
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Green Arrow: Year One
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Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places
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Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
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Dogger
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