When Your World Stops.

It's a beautiful sunny day.  You're cooped up in the office.  An email arrives, and well if you're in IT your typical first response is to check it out.

"This message is to advise that today at approx. 3:00 p.m. there was a minor incident involving the school bus # 16 in which your child was a passenger.  All students were triaged at the scene by local ambulance attendants as per district protocol and taken to school (or continued home).  Should you have any concerns, please take your child to see your family doctor or local area emergency room.  Also, it could be that someone from our insurance provider will be in touch with you over the next several days."

My world stopped.

Breathe.

First instinct: locate child.  However you'll notice in this message that he was either brought back to school or continued home.  Well depending on the route taken that is between 11.8 and 14.4 km.  I called home, no answer, called again, no answer, called the school, busy, called the school again, busy.  Seeing as I work on the next block I walked over to the school to see if they were there calling home the entire walk...'no mam, they were taken home'. Well I just thought I'd check as I was leaving the downtown core in the next 15 minutes. 

I finally got ahold of Alex while I was cutting through the graveyard back to the office.  Momentary relief.  However I asked him a couple of questions. 
-Are you ok?
-Yeah kind of, I hit my head and it hurts. 
-What did the paramedic say?
-Well we were told everything was all right and they asked if anyone was hurt
-Did you think to mention you hit your head?
-Well there wasn't any blood...
-How is it?
-It doesn't feel bad on the outside but hurts on the inside
-Are you sleepy?
-Yeah, I almost fell asleep on the bus
*blood pressure going through the roof*
-What?  How is your stomach?
-I thought I was going to be sick but I didn't.  It feels better now.
-Ok, well do something to stay awake, I'll be home as soon as I can

L-O-N-G-E-S-T C-A-R D-R-I-V-E E-V-E-R

So I've come to learn that the term triage is used very loosely by the district and I've since filed an inquiry/complaint.  I would have picked my son up and rushed him immediately to his family doctor before her office closed.  As it stands they wasted about 1.5-2 hours of our time dealing with a potential closed head injury.  I called our 811 service to get some advice and off we went

Thankfully as the evening went on he improved and today is no worse for the wear.  However I think I may have incurred a new gray hair or two!

A Carrot Production

Sometimes it's difficult being a crafter, and seeing your child totally not into crafting.  Or perhaps it does make the craft projects we've done in the past all the more special...because he truly hated doing it and faked it really well anytime I'd surprise him with a what I thought was fun project.  Regardless my son has found something that he does like...Claymation.  We were fortunate that the local library put on a free program to teach claymation and while Alex and his buddy missed the first night, they put their all into the next two one hour sessions and produced 81 slides.  The last night we were treated to a 'movie premiere' with a collaboration of all of the projects...

Christmas Gifts in the Works

This year I'm trying to tone down the Christmas commercialization and add a little homemade touch to it.  I've decided to attempt to knit and for the kids I'd decided to make hats and scarves, mittens would be pushing my comfort level a little bit too much this year.  So far I've made this set for my son:

I've also stitched up a scarf for Lily but I'll post that when the hat is also complete :)  It's been a blast trying my hand at something new, and a little hard to resist building up a stash ;)

I think I can.. I think I can...crochet!

Well here are my first attempts at crocheting.  I needed something that wouldn't get wrecked when the occasional tidal wave soaks me while supervising Lily's bathtime/synchronized swimming adventures

 A Frilly Rainbow scarf

Another Frilly scaft just for me :)

Not overly difficult, chaining and single crocheting...I think I have this ;)