Throw the Baby Down the Stairs

When Sebastian was about 4 months old he was invited to his first birthday party. Brooke, the little girl who lived next door to us (when we lived in Windsor) was celebrating her 2 year birthday.

This was Sebastian's first birthday invitation but given he was only 4 months old I am sure I was more excited than he was.

I raced around like a blue a** fly getting myself ready and getting Sebastian ready because god knows it takes a new mother all day to do this. I had both of us all dressed without any vomit, spit up or poo on us. I even had managed to get makeup including lipstick on.

I was racing down the stairs so that we would be ready to leave the minute daddy walked in from his hard day at the office.

I have this rather bad habit of piling things up on the steps to go upstairs. I blame my mother. She always did it when I was a child and now I do it. Frankly, even if she didn't I'd still blame her. She doesn't mind.

There was a huge pile of magazines that needed to be taken upstairs that I had put there that morning. In my rushing down the stairs with a baby in my hands, I forgot about the pile of magazines. My foot hit the magazines. The magazines flew up in the air as my foot slipped. Sebastian slipped out of my arms.

Time stopped. In ever so slow motion, I saw Sebastian flying through the air. I saw my arms reaching out to catch him. I saw my hands miss. I saw him hit the steps. I saw him bounce down the last couple of steps. I saw my body falling from forward motion almost land on him. at the last minute, time sped up and I threw myself sideways over the side of the stairs and hit my face on the wall and wedged my shins in on the bottom of the side of the stairs.

I freed myself by just picking up my feet and slumping to the ground in the hallway. I crawled to Sebastian who had done the silent scream as he hit the ground quickly followed by the blood curdling scream of intense shock. I tell you, I could have been paralyzed and still gotten to him.

I gathered him up into my arms and rocked. He wasn't bleeding. His head wasn't caved in. He stopped crying. Marc walked through the door to find Seb & I crumpled in a mess on the floor at the foot of the stairs. I mumbled through my tears what happened.

We rushed off to the hospital. Because Seb was so young, they looked him all over and made sure he was OK. Once he got the green light, we realised my nose was bleeding and my shins were all cut up. I hadn't even noticed. And I didn't care.

Mum of the Year Moment! I still feel guilty. I never stack magazines on the stairs. And if he fails at life he can blame me for throwing him down the stairs!

A&E Adventures

I plan. God laughs.

I had 4 meetings scheduled today. The first one barely got started before we realised we needed to reschedule. The second meeting started 20 minutes late. I was late to my next meeting and I was trying to find the guy I was supposed to be meeting with thinking gee, this day isn't going so well.

Then it went really bad. The school rang.

Sebastian had injured his head during playtime on the playground. This is what boys do. But do you think I could tell myself that in the middle of my office? I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown right there. Colleagues kicked in and got me calmed down. At first I was going to meet Seb at the hospital but then the school said to pick him up at school.

I followed the slowest drivers in the world all the way to school. Mental note to self: get blue lights for top of car. Look into installing siren. It seemed to take me forever to drive the 7 miles to the school.

I managed to ring Marc on my way (only because the drivers in front of me were only doing 10 miles/hour). I got to school just as Marc was walking out of the school with him. We put Seb in may car whilst Marc made arrangements for the childminder to keep Abigail and called the mum of the school mate of Seb's that was supposed to come round after school, Armand. That clearly wasn't going to happen.

Seb had a big huge bandage round his head. He looked a bit like a Civil War soldier. I couldn't see the cut so I didn't know how big it was. His shirt and scarf was covered in blood. They had wiped up his cheek but the blood was in and behind his ear. I very rationally thought, oh, it's a head wound. They bleed.....LOTS!

We got to the hospital. There were 3 other children with cuts to various parts of the head: cheek, eye, chin. The moon must be aligned with that head injury planet.

We waited an hour (which isn't too bad for A&E). I became ever so slightly worried when the nurse took us into the same room we were in a few months ago when Seb cut open just under his eye and he proceeded to tell the nurse "Oh, I've been here before." And the nurse replied "Yes, we know. You've been here 9 times." And then gave me that accusing evil eye. Why do I always feel so guilty? He's a boy. This is what boys do to punish their mothers.

Seb was very brave and got up on the table like he knew the drill. The nurse started to wipe away the blood and because it had been a while since he had been injured, it hurt. The blood had dried. The hair was stuck. We had a few tears. I was concentrating on distracting him. Wish someone had distracted me. I looked up and snuck a peek and oh my god, the cut ran down nearly the entire side of his head. At which point I thought I was going to faint. I thought it best not to alarm Seb so we sang a rousing rendition of VooDoo Child. They glued him all back together. No baths for 5 days! mmmmm, he'll smell lovely!

I missed my last meeting altogether. I had just left the office with everything strewn all over the place (hey, that's how I work). Thanks to my colleagues for helping me regain my composure well enough to get me to the school.

I had originally planned to publish a post about my daughter and her singing and dressing up. That will have to wait until tomorrow, notwithstanding any future acts of god, natural disasters or physical accidents.

Household Accidents

Big thanks go out to Trevor and Joy Cook who had us round for Sunday dinner yesterday. Jamie, their son, goes to school with Sebastian and we spent a relaxing afternoon enjoying their culinary delights (especially the bread and butter pudding) and a few glasses of wine. The children were having a great time playing (Seb & Jamie are computer whizzes already)........right up until the point when....wait for it....Jamie fell chasing a remote controlled helicopter (don't ask) around the lounge and his eye had a collision with a glass topped table. Off to A&E (ER for you Americans) for some glue and strips. Table 1 Jamie 0. What's a Sunday afternoon without a trip to A&E? I knew our school holidays just were not complete. Not enough excitement, that's what I say!

Then I couldn't sleep.....at all....Marc got The West Wing (Series 7) for Christmas (which inexplicably we missed a lot of) and we watched a few episodes then off to bed. I was up reading until 3 am with loads of trips to the toilet and looking out the window. For some reason I had convinced myself that someone was breaking into the house. Now my husband did try to convince me that this was a wee bit irrational given that we live down a lane, there were no unidentified cars parked outside, it was raining cats and dogs and blowing a gale, and the dog was not making any noise. This was all beside the point as far as I was concerned at 2 am. I finally put the book down and convinced myself that they could take it all if they had to but I had to get to work so I needed to sleep. Finally, dozed off somewhere about the time that it was time for me to get up. Perfect!

My mother's Christmas box finally arrived today ! We loved having a second Christmas! Odd thing is my brother, George's box has never arrived and he sent his before my mother sent hers. Who can understand the mysteries of the postal service? We got loads of Colorado jumpers which are the perfect antidote to this horrible weather (all cotton and thick and soft and warm).

Marc and I severed our franchise agreement with Auditel today after 4 years and 8 months of operation. We never lost money but we never hit our targets either. When the mobile and energy markets changed so dramatically we knew we were never going to hit the sales targets and it was costing us much more than we were earning over the last year to maintain the agreement. So we are now wholly dependent on the computer services business. Just as well not to have the franchise distraction (and financial commitment)! it has been slow during the

Marc is making a killer lasagne for dinner, Seb starts back to school and Abigail goes off to pre-school and her new ballet class tomorrow . I am shattered and want to go to bed. The holiday is over and the rat race begins.....get ready, get set.......