The weekend the world imploded.

 Ok, so the title may be a little dramatic.  But I really did feel like our world was falling apart and taking my brain with it.  Now, a month later, I can look back and think about maybe laughing.... someday.   I am still wincing from the memory of it.  It might take a while. 

Let me set the stage for you.  Caleb was 3 weeks old and was not sleeping well at all (that alone is enough to send any woman over the edge!).  We were packing up our house piece by piece during those 3 weeks to get ready for "the weekend". 

So, Friday morning, there I am getting ready (the best I can with a halfway packed up house) to go close on the paperwork for our home.  Trying my best not to be too emotional and start sobbing and saying goodbye to completely random parts of the house like the baseboards and the blinds.  Someone informs me that there is poop on the bathroom floor (oddly not that uncommon with our newly minted family of 5 children).  I strap on baby Caleb in his carrier so he won't be screaming while I attempt to clean the bathroom.  I send the kids out to the front yard to swing and leave the door open to listen for fighting. 

The poop it seems, must have been there for some time.  Like maybe days, or weeks. It won't scrub off!  I keep cleaning and thoughts go through my head of maybe leaving it since we'll be gone in a couple days anyway.... but that thought quickly leaves as I think of Karma and what might be waiting for us in our new house.  I think of how this morning has gone relatively smooth, which I am grateful for since it will be Leila's last day at afternoon Kindergarten and I want to walk out and lovingly send her off on the bus so she will remember me as a kind, thoughtful, attentive mother.  The kind that patiently cleans up poop and carefully places you on the bus on your last day of your old school. 

Almost done, just a few spots left, and then... SCREAMING!  Blood curdling massive screaming coming from the front yard.  I hear Leila and Marshall doing their best to guide a hysterical Lillian in to the house.  The first thing I see is blood.  Massive amounts.  Like tons.  Her mouth is full of it.  It's dripping from her mouth onto her blood-soaked shirt.  It's dripping from her shirt onto the freshly disinfected tile.  I don't even know where it's coming from!

I do my best to sop it off of her mouth and remover her shirt so it will stop dripping all over.  She's still hysterical.

 Leila and Marshall are sputtering things about her swinging too high, letting go, tipping off the swing and falling out.   I do my best with her screaming to peer into her mouth to see where she's bleeding from.  Teeth all accounted for, and then I see her tongue and a gaping hole still pulsing with blood.  I take a deep breath and start running her a bath.  She's covered in blood and I can't even touch her without it smearing on my clothes and Caleb still patiently strapped in his carrier. 

Jesse calls just as I am getting her in the tub and cheerfully says he'll be home in 4 seconds because he's coming around the corner.  A little relief, but still worried, I frantically give him the rundown. 

He takes the baby and puts Leila on the bus (so much for her calm morning for her last day of school!).  We both do what we can to calm Lils down.  Eventually it was reading her books while she was in the tub that did the trick.  She would barely talk, we can tell it hurts her even to push the drool out of her mouth.

I called my Dad who thankfully hadn't left for work yet and he agreed to help Jesse give her a Priesthood blessing.  When we get to his house he had changed into his white shirt and had his olive oil all ready.  This is why I love my Father.  He seems to have a special bond with Lillian and she too, is fond of him.  After the blessing, he offers her ice cream, and popsicles, but in the end it's a balloon that he fishes down from the ceiling that makes her smile.  Her smile made her wince :(

The rest seems like a blur, we head into the title company to sign for the house.  Something I was preparing for mentally and emotionally just flies by as my only concern is for Lillian. 

She whimpers here and there and even though we can't see the wound to tell how deep or wide it is we figure we can't go through the rest of the weekend with her in this much pain. 

Jesse drops me off at instacare so he can run his last minute errands before his last court of honor with his scouts.  The nurse took a little look at her mouth and told us we had to head over to the ER because it was too deep of a cut for them to handle.  With Jesse already gone, I gather her in my arms and walk across the parking lot to the ER. 

By the time the doctor could look at her she had fallen asleep on my chest, drooling blood onto my clothes.  Naptime, it seems, comes even at the ER.

 I kept it together as they told me they'd have to sedate her through an IV line, numb her tongue and then put a few stitches in the top to keep it closed.  They explained that she might not be herself as she came out of the sedation and she may hallucinate or not recognize us or know where she was.  As soon as the nurse left the room I lost it and wept a little with my sleeping Lilsy on my chest.  I wished to the high heavens that I could do this for her, and hoped that she would remember none of it.

Our loving family and friends had taken care of the other kids and made sure Cooper and Leila got safely off the bus.  That seems to be the re-occurring tender mercy through all of this, that we had so many people willing to step in and help.

We promised cooper a good-bye s'mores party for all his friends in the neighborhood, this was the only night it could happen.  So we just bit the bullet and did it. 

I am glad we did :)

 That night was rough with Lils.  She couldn't talk to tell us what she wanted so she ended up carrying 3 sippy cups around with her.  She was so thirsty but it hurt her so bad to swallow that she refused everything.  My heart broke for her when I had to force the tylenol and ibuprofen down.  That night she woke up at 3 AM and chugged a sippy full of juice.  I was very relieved.

 The next day, bright and early, was moving day.  With the help of ward members and family, we packed up everything but our mattresses.

When I finally got a look at the new place, I liked how big it was, but realized it needed to be painted.  Jesse assured me he could have it finished in a couple of days.  I knew we needed to, and I knew it would be worth it, but my heart sank as I tried to think of where we could sleep and how I could start the kids at their new school with all our stuff in boxes.

The calm in the eye of the storm was Sunday when we blessed little Caleb.  It was a great day :)  And again, family stepped in to have a luncheon for us that we could not do for ourselves.  We talked to Becca who graciously agreed to let us stay at her house for the next few days.

Lils was still not talking and if we kept up her tylenol she would barely eat soft foods like applesauce, but at least she was eating.

 Monday (labor day) we moved the last of everything out of our house and cleaned up.  We locked the doors and drove away.

Luckily, the Callahans showed up at our new house to help unpack the heavy stuff.

Tuesday, Jesse was up early and gone to work, but I managed to get my 5 children dressed and ready by 8:30 to go meet the new teachers at the new school.  Grandma Monique graciously watched the younger 3 so I could focus on the 2 that were actually going to school.  Here is a picture to document Leila's first day, which we celebrated by taking her to mcd's.   Sorry Coop, you got ousted.

 It was an especially rainy day and I didn't think much of it until I stopped off at the new house to grab another change of clothes for myself and the kids.  All our stuff, which was sitting in the carport behind the house, was standing in about 3 inches of water.   I would have taken a picture but I was, you know, freaking out, crying, trying not to lose it completely.  I called Jesse who dropped everything and came to move all the boxes out of the water and hang up wet things to dry.  I guess the silver lining in this situation was that there was nothing irreplaceable that was permanently damaged.

Now we come to Wednesday.  My favorite.  It was the first night we slept in our new house.  Our bed was heavenly.

I woke up to this:

The next week was still extremely stressful amidst spurts of frantically looking for necessities in wet or soggy boxes, but that weekend tops it all. 

I will never forget the roller coaster of emotions packed into those few days, but I will also never forget the relief that flooded over me every time someone stepped in to fill a need.  I know that was my Heaveny Father working through many willing hands.