Weekend Wrap-up and a day I will not soon forget.

Friday night didn't go as I planned, I had hoped to make it over to CC's house to christen his beautiful poker room. The problem was, Friday was also Poker Night for my neighborhood. I have the 'honor' of running the game on a Monthly basis. I was hoping we would have a bad turnout and I could close up shop, but we had a very good turn out instead. +EV for me, I get to play against a 60/40 mix of players/donks rather than the table full of sharks over at CC's. It turns out I made the right choice for the bankroll as I took 2nd in the tournament then won another 60 playing .50/1 Holdem with a $5 max. Which really turned into 5 Limit. there were 2 guys at the table who were recklessly spewing chips and I was happy to partake of the action.

Saturday I sweated out the alcohol working in the yard, beginning my quarterly yard maintenance. I sprayed weeds, spread some granules and whacked down the butterfly bushes in the pine island. I will need to get about 30-40 bales of pine straw to complete the work. I'll go back through the island and yard next weekend for more spraying and weeding in preparation. Saturday night I stayed up till 2(3) to see if anything went wrong with my servers. I spent an hour or so logging on to various systems and checking things. As I suspected, nothing major happened and every thing seems to have changed time properly except a few clients in NY who probably didn't reboot as I asked. The wife was out with her mom and sister.

I got a call around 1:30, the wife was at her sister's house and they got their mom drunk! Trust me, this is something I have never seen, I've never seen this woman have more than one drink. Saturday she had three......evidently thats her limit. The wife decided to wait it out a bit, then take her mom home. They got a real good laugh out of it, but her mother was none to pleased. She wandered in around 4 am and we slept in instead of going to church.

Sunday morning was quiet, I got up and did my usual breakfast routine. Bacon, eggs, waffles and fruit. The kids love to help, but mostly love slathering everything on their plates with maple syrup. After Breakfast was cleaned up I took my cup of coffee out to the porch to get a little air and relaxation before beginning what was to be a full day. My cousin Stew was having his second child baptized (my justification for skipping early church) then having some people over to his new house. I really wanted to see his new place, Stew and I are very close and see each other once a month or so. (usually to disastrous results....but more on that another time). Then we were heading to my big brother's house for his daughters 4th birthday.

I sat and breathed in deep, the weather was just perfect outside. I wondered what the wife was doing, as I was sure she saw me go out. Several minutes later I hear a noise, I think to myself that the children have broken,maimed or thrown something, I reminded myself to take a breath before getting angry, then I heard the screams.

I ran through the front door and saw my wife coming up the stairs from the basement. She had our youngest daughter (G-squared) in her arms, her face was covered in blood and she was screaming. I froze, just for a second, and that image burned into my mind. My beautiful daughter looking at me mouth wide open, screaming, her eyes huge as saucers,pleading to me, and a huge red gash over her right eye streaming blood into her porcelain white face.

I swallowed and tried to breathe. I took g2 and sat her on the counter. I told my wife to get the number for the hospital, not 911. She called to find out if they had a plastic surgeon on call. I took a closer look at my little girl and reassured her it was going to be OK, even though I was holding back panic to the best of my abilities. I took off the towel my wife had gotten, and took a look. It was not easy to look at. She had a slice running from just below the orbit of her eye to the middle of her forehead as deep as it could go without going through her skull.

I looked at her eyes, she was in shock, but alert and talking. She was calming down a bit, and I tore through the medicine box and found the butterfly bandages. I had to get that bleeding stopped as much as possible. I taped the wound closed and grabbed the gauze. I taped gauze over the whole thing and told her to keep her hand pressing on it. She held the gauze there and I ran upstairs to get dressed, get kids shoes and a change of clothes for g2. We called Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and let them know we were coming. I just had too many doubts about taking her to the hospital in Cumming. I knew she would get the best care at Children's, and they confirmed there was a specialist on hand.

Children's Healthcare is located about 20 miles from our house, but it felt like it took an hour to get there. Master P and mouse briefly complained about going to the hospital instead of seeing their cousins. I firmly (maybe a bit too firmly) explained the situation to the kids in an attempt to make them understand the gravity of it all, but they really had no idea how bad it could have been.

The wife's folks were called, I explained the details to my mother in law who was a nurse at one time. I asked her about shock and what to do. G2 was sleepy, and I told my wife to keep talking to her and to make her stay awake. My mother in law went through a few general nurse-type questions and convinced me that g2 would be fine. She lost a good bit of blood, but her color was good and she was coherent and talking.

I hate Hospitals...but doesn't everyone? I especially hate hospitals when I have to stand in line with my child in my arms and a bloody towel over her face. We get her checked in and I resist every urge to scream at someone...I just wanted a fucking doctor to look at my child NOW, but I played the game and we waited.

The in-laws came in the door shortly thereafter and my sister in law came in with doughnuts and milk for everyone....damn she's good. After about 10 minutes and five trips to the admitting desk, we get called by triage. They go over the basics (again) and we finally get taken back to a room. I start feeling better in small increments.

We see the first doctor, who I am sure is lighter than peter pan, but he is very good. ( We are later informed that he is in fact married with children, and all the nurses call him 'PIP', hmmmm)He asks g2 all the questions, which she answers perfectly. He then asks who put on the butterfly bandages and I get a nice little pat on the back. He confirms the plastics dude is on the way, but he has to undress the bandage and apply the numbing agents which take 20-30 minutes to activate fully.

We relax a bit, g2 gets to watch the Incredibles.

The youngish Surgeon comes in and he is all business, but gentile and reassuring. I start to think about the small mint this is going to cost me and quickly push that thought out of my mind.

What's interesting is I was listening to the news station this morning, and they were reporting on a missing boy in Glynn county. They were interviewing the missing boy's grandmother and she stated something to the effect of "they can take my cars, my house, my land or my leg.....I just want that baby back. there ain't nothing that matters to me as much as that baby"

I just sit there and traffic and cry a little for that family, I felt the same way at the moment money crossed my mind. Nothing matters as much as my baby(ies) I'd go and clean that hospital on the night shift if that's what it came down to. But I know my insurance is good, and I knew I was just thinking irrationally.

The surgeon sewed 18 stitches into the injury and did really a fantastic job of talking to us and g2 during the procedure. She went through the whole thing wide awake and didn't move a muscle, there's just no way to explain how amazed of her I was. The doctors and staff were equally amazed at her demeanor and strength. I'm pretty sure she never cried during the entire visit.

We got the kids home, fed and in bed. We went downstairs and cleaned up the broken glass and table. We finally sat and talked, we played the "what if?" game for far too long going over and over how it must have happened and how close she was to losing her eye, and possibly her life.

As my sister said, she had a little angel on her shoulder.

We could have been making funeral arrangements, but we got to kiss our baby and put her in her bed. We could have been looking for some depraved pedophile who stole into our baby's room and took her off into the night, but she was safe and warm.

A little cut can do a lot of things to you...