Exhausted

Can I just tell you how exhausted I am? No seriously, I'm exhausted. It has been such a trying few months in our lives here and last week put the cherry right on top.

It started when Liberty, our dog, escaped from the yard and we couldn't catch her for about an hour and a half. In that time she ran up to a little boy on his bike and pulled on his jacket sleeve. The little boy fell from his bike into the road and began crying. His dad claimed our dog had bitten him (nope) and cursed out my kids and then called the cops.

The police came and checked the boy out. He was perfectly fine besides a small bruise where his body hit the pavement. Then they checked out Liberty to make sure she wasn't vicious. She licked the officer's pants. Nope, not vicious at all. Just extremely playful and energetic.

Either way, we decided that there was just too much risk in keeping her. She's constantly darting out of the house at the slightest opportunity. I'm sure the neighbors are a little sick of seeing us chase her around the street. And although she has never bitten anyone before, that night was just too close for comfort. So, with many, many tears, we said goodbye to our dog. Mike's aunt took her and will search for a good home for her with the possibility of just keeping her.

The whole thing was just so heartbreaking to me. I still tear up thinking about it.

Then... we went to Mike's grandpa's house on Sunday for an early Thanksgiving. Bella was playing with her cousins in the yard. They had started to play on a lawn chair lifting the chair up when one of them was sitting in it and then letting it drop. When it was Bella's turn, she placed her hand in the wrong spot and the headrest part came unhooked from it's position. It slammed down and acted like a paper cutter, ripping the tip of her middle finger off.

I was sitting maybe 10 feet away from her when I heard her scream and I ran to her. As soon as I freed her hand and saw the damage, all I could think to do was cover her eyes. The tip was hanging by a small amount of flesh and she was screaming. I knew if she saw what I saw it would have been so much worse.

Aunts flocked to us. All I could manage to say was "It's gone. Her finger is gone." One aunt calmly asked if I had the tip over and over. Mike grabbed Bella and the family all looked and gave their opinion that there was nothing the hospital could really do about it. That there was nothing to stitch anything to, but we needed to take her so they could clean it and wrap it.

There was just so much commotion and so many people talking at once that I just yelled out, "no more talking! Let's go!"

We had her finger wrapped in ice and paper towels. There was so much blood. My pants were stained. I sat in the back of the car while Mike drove to the emergency room. Bella screamed the entire time asking if she was going to die. All I could think about was that this was my perfect baby girl and how much I didn't want her to lose a finger and be marred for the rest of her life.

I ran Bella in while Mike parked. We were brought into a room almost right away but it took more than an hour before a Dr came in. We prayed over her. I begged God to make her whole again. Call after call poured in from family members and friends also offering prayers and well-wishes.

When the Dr finally came in, he looked at her finger and assured us he could indeed stitch it all back together, and Bella's finger would be fine. They took x-rays and saw that the tip of the bone in that finger had also been fractured. We could actually see the bone sitting there where her finger tip used to be. It was quite gruesome.

Bella is now stitched up and almost as good as new. She's in a lot of pain still and I have her staying home from school for the whole week. It's a short week though so that's good. Her class is going on a field trip today and she is so sad that she has to miss it. I told her we would make a field trip here at home just for her. That seemed to make her happy.

I myself, like I said, am exhausted and wondering when all the bad stuff is going to end. Hmmph.