The Journey of Parenthood…

drifting to sea, ER visit, and busted face: the untold labor day stories

The Parker Family Labor Day Vacation was fun and filled with many great memories…however a lot of crazy stuff happened too. So much crazy stuff that I thought it’d be more entertaining to lump it all into one blog entry 🙂

On Saturday the guys took a break from watching football and decided to go ride some more waves with their boogie boards. I was resting watching tv, the kids were napping, Casey was napping and Courtney was sitting on the deck watching the guys in the water. As I mentioned before, the waves were CRAZY over the weekend due to the hurricane so the guys were all pumped about the awesome waves. I have heard many versions of this story so I’m going to take the safe route and only tell the version that I myself experienced. Like I said we were all relaxing and I was zoned out in front of the tv when Courtney came running in from the deck and yelled out, “Brad’s getting taken out to sea!!!” I casually got up to check it out (Zach’s fam is well known for exaggerating a bit) and Courtney went around getting everyone else to come out too (even Mr. Rusty stopped watching football for a minute to join us and Casey woke up from her nap!). Courtney said that Zach had been waving to the lifeguard to bring in Brad.

When I got out there I just saw Brad way out in the ocean on his boogie board looking fine to me and then I saw Zach and Jordan closer to shore holding their boogie boards. I kept telling Courtney that Brad must be fine because if he wasn’t then Zach and Jordan wouldn’t just be chilling. As soon as I said that I saw Zach motioning in the water to the lifeguard then swim out to Brad. Courtney and Mrs. Charlotte were crying in fear and Mrs. Charlotte said a classic quote: “omg I’m more worried about Zach than Brad!” (which is FUNNY when you hear it but totally makes sense b/c Brad had a boogie board and Zach was going out to help him and he didn’t have anything to hold on to and you do always hear about people drowning when they tried to save someone else). Once Zach started swimming then the lifeguard finally sprang into action and started swimming out to them. Zach reached Brad and saw the lifeguard coming so he swam horizontally back to shore. Between Brad and the Baywatch Lifeguard’s efforts Brad made it back safely to shore and he was fine.

During all of this Mr. Rusty told me to go grab a camera!!!I told him I didn’t quite feel comfortable about it but he said I could blame it on him so it’s his fault I took pictures. Throughout the ordeal I kept thinking that everyone was kinda making a big deal out of nothing. I mean how could someone drown when they have a boogie board and when we are all watching? But later I got to thinking about it and people drown all the time with other people right there watching so I guess it was a bigger deal than I made it out to be. Once all the guys came in for the afternoon (yes they continued to boogie board after all this) we heard several different versions of the story but one thing that was funny to me is that Zach said he turned to Jordan while the lifeguard was “saving” Brad and said, “we cannot tell everyone about this b/c Mom and Courtney will freak.” Then they looked back at the condo and saw ALL of us out on the balcony haha!!! We all even cheered when Brad got to shore like you do for an injured player when they get taken off the field. We can laugh about it now (and have plenty of great nick-names for Brad for the rest of his life) but we can only laugh b/c it all turned out okay!

the “rescue”

Zach and Jordan meeting Brad once he got in

From the balcony we were laughing about all these scraggly lifeguards out there!

Sunday morning, as I mentioned earlier, we all had church then got ready to go to the beach. Zach and Mr Rusty were golfing so I had Kye duty on my own. I got ready to go then I got Kye ready. Of course he was playing with those stinkin’ trains and did NOT want sunscreen on. I got him down from the couch to put it on him and he was mad and did what a typical 18 month old does when angry…he threw the toy train. And it just so happened that my face was right in the way. Awesome.

I immediately got onto Kye as I’d normally do but while I was using my “strict Mommy voice” I had to keep myself from crying. It hurt that badly. I could see Mrs. Charlotte out of the corner of my eye watching me with her mouth dropped opened but I just thought she was surprised I was getting onto Kye so harshly (it hurt bad enough that I seriously wanted to smack him…no worries I didn’t but you know when someone hurts you it’s natural to want to hurt them back!). After he said sorry I got up and touched the spot on my nose and realized it was bleeding. I really, really am chill in situations like that so I went to the bathroom and saw that it was not too bad but was bad enough that I worried about scarring (duh, I’m NOT having a scar).

you can click on the pictures to make them bigger 🙂

I got everyone’s opinion and no one was really sure what they would do. I’m thankful Zach wasn’t there b/c I KNOW he would have said to just stick a band aid on it and then I’d have a scar forever! I talked to Mrs. Charlotte and she had the idea for us to go to Walgreen’s and get a pharmacists opinion on what to do about it to minimize scarring. So Courtney, Brad, Casey, Jordan, Colt, Payton, and Kye enjoyed the beach and we went to Walgreen’s. Once the pharmacist got there she directed us to another Walgreen’s that had an actual health clinic inside of it with a legit nurse (I didn’t know such places existed!). 

here’s a closer view

The walk-in clinic people were mega nice and this young guy behind the counter said something similar happened to him but instead of a toy train it was a golf ball and he showed me the spot on his nose where they glued it instead of stitching it. I filled out all the paperwork and Mrs. Charlotte was heading back to the condo when the dr. came out, looked at my nose and said “that’s an area at high risk for both infection and scarring, you need to go to the ER.” No joke! Thankfully, the ER was only like 5 min away! I’ve only been to the ER once for an “emergency” and that was when Zach stabbed through his hand with a bread knife. We waited forever and it was quite a pain in the butt. I got mega lucky this time though because we literally walked right in! I guess 9:30 am on a Sun is a good time to have an “emergency!” 

The dr. was SO nice! She told me that my olive skin color is wonderful for aging as I won’t get many wrinkles (score!) but that it’s the worst skin tone for scarring (boo). She cleaned it really good as she said infection would make scarring worse then she used this super glue stuff to seal it while it heals. My instructions were to not touch it or get it wet for 5 days then to start using vitamin E and Mederma on it after that to get it to heal. She said that staying away from the sun is VITAL as most scarring is due to the sun. I told her about Danielle’s wedding and how important it is for me to be tan and she actually said it’d be better for me to go to the tanning bed because I can turn off the face thing and keep my face from getting any sun but when you’re outside it’s impossible to protect your skin 100%. She said walks are out for the first 5 days and I need to use MEGA sunscreen and wear a hat after that. She even said to cover my face when I check the mail!!! It looked WAY better after the glue was on it and even though I feel kinda silly for going, I’m glad I did. I’m nervous to see the bill but it’s worth it to not have a big ugly scar right in the center of my face!

Monday morning everyone wanted one more trip out to the pool with the kids before we left and I didn’t want to miss out so we rigged up something to cover my nose. The dr. said that a band aid is NOT good coverage because band-aids are actually made to let in sun so you don’t get a funky tan line. So we put gauze in a sandwich bag then covered that with band-aids and covered those with sunscreen. I was only outside for about 30 min so hopefully it worked! I just pretended that I had a fresh nose job 😉

While at the pool on Monday Kye and Payton LOVED playing with the outdoor shower meant to be used when hosing off from the beach. Kye loved turning on and off the foot faucet and it was nice for him to have something fun to do!

We were all RIGHT THERE watching which is so frustrating that even when you’re within an arms reach of your child, they can still get hurt. He was turning on the faucet when he slipped on the wet, sandy ground and fell into the faucet. He bawled and was bleeding the most I’ve ever seen him bleed. It was scary for me b/c I had just been reading trashy tabloid magazines while laying out and had seen tons of pictures of Shiloh Pitt and how her front tooth was knocked out or whatever. I had visions of Kye being toothless until he’s like 7. Thankfully, no teeth or gums were affected. He scratched his face up pretty bad and was bleeding inside of his mouth. I’m thinking when he fell he bit down really hard? His whole mouth was swollen on that side and it was just pitiful to see him.

pre-fall

post-fall (see how swollen?)

He was beyond fussy (which is why we let the kids watch a movie while we packed) and I don’t blame him! He kept playing with his mouth and moving it different ways because he couldn’t get used to how swollen it was. Poor thing 🙁 

While there were lots of scary situations over the weekend, the worst part of all of it to me was that when Kye was hurting the worst he’s ever been hurt he didn’t want his mommy. He was bawling and I immediately scooped him up to comfort him and he turned and reached for Daddy. When we came back up to the room he only wanted to sit with Daddy and be loved on by Daddy. It IS sweet but it literally broke my heart. Aren’t little boys supposed to cling to their mommies? Don’t all kids want Mommy when they are hurt?I need another kid so someone will want ME!!!

Emily Parker
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