The Swelling Progresses

Saturday Evening, the cut and swelling look worse.

The Accident

So Thursday night, Henry rushed into the Music room, which was dark at the time. Meg was right there with him, and saw him trip in the middle of the area rug and smack his face on the bottom of the window seat moulding. Meg picked him up and took him into the kitchen, thinking Henry was in for one heck of a goose egg on his forehead. When Henry took his hand away from his head, there was blood all over and Henry had a boxer's split under his eyebrow. "I think he needs stitches," said Meg, as Marc rushed over with frozen food to stop the swelling. "God Damn-it!" said Marc, "let's go." By the time we got to the hospital, just a few minutes away, the bleeding had mostly stopped. The doctor at the ER used a super glue to hold the edges together. Meg is getting dizzy and nauseous just thinking about it. The next morning, Henry said the worst part was when they took off his shoes and used a pinchy thing to get his pulse. Friday, Meg and Henry went to the Eagle River Children's museum and out to lunch in celebration of Henry's bravery.

Big Hockey Day

Henry was playing hockey in the house this morning and going around saying 'Goal!' and so we thought it would be fun to go play the real thing. I think this might be a Super Bowl tradition. I remember the night of the 49ers Chargers Super Bowl, after about the third play I realized the game was over and I went to the Good Hope rink and played hockey for the rest of the night. That was the first year the Parkway rink was closed, so we only had the Good Hope rink, but it was still really fun. I remember a lot of people showing up that night.

Anyway, we went to the rink on Oneida (that I fear will be torn down this summer in order to make room for the new County Fair). The ice was SPECTACULAR. The weather was nice, but there was a cold wind blowing. You can see from these photos that we all had a really good time.

This package, pictured below, is a constant temtation for Henry. I keep it in the drawer with the measureing spoons, and today when he opened the drawer, he said "Cool. Eat it" I got him to tell me it was the cheesecake that looked yummy, but you never know what a two year old is really thinking. I purchased 4 boxes of this stuff this summer, after realizing that jello has no nutritional value. (What? It's made out of cow skin, but has no protein?) This box here says that the 2 grams of protein per serving does not make it a significant source of protein. Is this in response to Atkins diets? Dumb mothers wanting to make their kids eat jello for unfounded reasons?

Anyway, to make a boring story shorter, I made orange juice jello with pineapple this morning, modeled after a Martha Stewart recipe in which she uses freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. I found it to be just short of nauseating, but Henry devoured it. Maybe he just liked the pineapple?

Problems for the Rhinelander School District

The proposed cuts for this year's school district budget include reducing the High School Music dept. to 1/2 choir position and 1/2 band position. I really can't imagine how this scenario could function...who is willing to get paid half a salary for a job that (theoretically) takes a full 40+ hour week in the districts I've been a part of. Are they not doing lessons? Could someone fill both positions? What kind of loony bin did we move to?

Children's Museum with Rudy

My friend Carrie and I, both relatively new to the Northwoods, both have a year pass to the Children's Museum in Eagle River. Carrie, Rudy, Henry and I visited the museum together last Friday. This museum *might* be bigger and better than the old (or current?) Madison Children's Museum, which Henry and I played at this summer right before the onset of hand foot and mouth disease...but I digress. I think the museum is pretty good, especially for being in the boondocks where it's every man for himself and no one wants to pay for anything that will help the greater good. The Madison Museum has a beautiful two story wooden structure and better ambiance, but Eagle River has loads of Melissa and Doug toys, a fishing pond, a reading tree, and other things that Henry and I enjoy playing with together.

Pappa and Jo

Henry now has names for his Grandma and Grampa Boucher. Grandma is 'Jo' for Grandma Jo (just like my Grandma Jo) and Grampa Frank is 'Papa.'

Henry is doing great down here in Arkansas - he is having a ball chasing around Sasha, and he went for a walk with us down to the lake where we got in a bit of trouble by getting Sasha dirty.

Mom and Meg are working on crosswords from the New York Times right now and Dad and I just played a bit of music, although I was out of tune. So, we're going to try it aqain tomorrow...

Henry is sleeping in his own bed. Grandma and Grampa bought a safety rack for the side of the bed and he hasn't fallen out yet - Henry can sleep in a grown up bed all by himself!