all banged up

Last week Lexi, gretta, and I paid a trip to Idaho to visit my parents.

Grandma Debbie surprised Lex with a "big girl bike" She was stoked to say the least.

The second we pulled in our driveway Friday, she was on it, pedaling down the lane to show some friends. I went inside with Shawn and started getting dinner ready. A few minutes later, our precious gal came running into our house screaming 

"My bike! My bike!" 

She had blood all down the side of her face and her whole right eye was bloody. I grabbed her and Shawn and I ran outside to find her bike. She was acting kind of delirious, and I honestly thought she had been hit by a car. 

(later shawn told me the same)

It really was one of those moments that everything slows down. I felt so panicky, because her bike was no where to be seen and we couldn't get her to calm down. She pointed to the end of our street, and Shawn took off to find the bike while I took her inside to assess the owees.

Her eyelid had a decent gash, a little road rash, and some minor scrapes various places. Phew. 

Her eye would not stop bleeding for me to get a good look and she seemed pretty traumatized bawling in my arms. 

Shawn came back wide eyed and told me that he found Lexi's bike at the end of our street in a ditch filled with jagged rocks. Her bike had flown pretty far and the handlebars were bent. He thought it looked like it had been a pretty hard wreck. Well, at this point I get really over-reactive about a possible head injury I am missing (my nursing degree really is a detriment to motherhood at times-I always jump to the worst case scenario). I am asking her all sorts of questions about where she hurts and checking her pupils. I think I even asked her how old she was once. ha! And NO she was not wearing a helmet (mother of the year over here huh?) Aw, It was so sad. Every time I would ask her to tell me what happened she would start sobbing when it got to the point of her getting up on her own with no one around to help and climbing over all the boulders to get out of the ditch by her self. Oh my goodness. Breaks my heart.

Finally, the drama all calmed down and she seemed to be doing better after her Daddy ran to the store for some special princess and the frog band aids. We bandaged her up, steri-stripped her eye, and declared it a family movie night. 

Her choice.

While the kids were tuned in, Shawn walked me down to show me the enemy.

Oh my goodness. It could have been so much worse. She had smacked a big rock about half way down, which stopped her while her bike flew. There was blood on that rock and the rocks below.

We went back home to cuddle some more. Glad that everything was okay.

That night was added to the countless ones of hardly any sleep and tearing up thinking about what I would do if anything ever happened to one of my kiddos. Dang Motherhood. I swear it is one worry after another, and I wish I could hold them under my little wing all day everyday and protect them from all the danger and pain the world has to offer.

I suppose that they would miss out on all the wonder, beauty, and goodness though too. Darn.

I guess I just need to relax a little, and chalk this up as one of the many bicycle wrecks to be had. There won't be another without a helmet though. And that's a fact.

Such a brave girl.

love her.

love her.

love her.

p.s. took pictures of all the rocks and the easy access to the ditch/bank for any kid riding bikes on our street. I'll be turning it into the city. Hoping to get a fence or some shrubs put up for some sort of barrier. Wish me luck. SO out of my comfort zone, but I may have to get all Erin Brockavich on them. :)