the long awaited...

going to the ER is a funny thing. tonight i got wheeled around in a wheel chair, when i was perfectly capable of walking. i laid in a hospital bed (because it was there) and the nurse put guard rails up on both sides of me, as if i was going to roll off the bed. and there was some minor drama when i couldn't get my earring out of my ear for the x-rays. the doctor helped me (even though i'm quite sure he'd never worked an earring before in his life) and it hurt.
but just so everyone knows. I'm FINE.
though, i do have some whiplash. i got rear-ended something fierce.
and i have a perscription of valuim, for which i was strictly instructed not to drive.
each of the five or so people who worked with me tonight said something to the effect of, "it'll be worse tomorrow."
sweet... something to look forward to.
the nurse gave me a doctors note to miss up to 3 days of work. ha ha.
i think i'm going to go to bed now. if you could feel the rocks in my shoulders, you'd know why.

family dinner

Some phrases I heard a dinner tonight…
>please don’t stand up in your chair
>do not put your food on other people’s plates
>do not play with your food (as the child was putting shells and cheese on each fingertip)
>you don’t need another spoon, you already have two in your hand
>stop throwing your food
>stop throwing your peas back in the serving dish

Some things I saw at dinner tonight...
>two different children plugging their nose while eating peas (because they didn’t like them)
>one child spit a mouthful of chicken back onto his plate (for some unknown reason)
>peas flying onto different peoples plates and serving dishes
>a family of 8 (plus me) enjoying each others company

I like a little chaos at dinner. It's much better than eating by oneself in front of the TV.

I'm sure I've missed a few key points of the experience, but nonetheless...

If you didn’t guess, one of my foster families invited me to dinner, since I was there at dinner time. The children in their home both biological and foster are ages: 11, 9, 7, 2, 2, 1. Can you imagine? This woman makes me want to be a mom, for real. She is a super star (and a half).

also, one of the bio children (age 7) said "this is a good place for fosters becuase there is alot going on." (as i was swinging on a swing with 3 children and watching 2 others.) i thought that was really cute. not PC, but really cute.

Just for the record though, I think today's experience showed that I personally could not handle 6 children at once.

Oh and one more thing. On this day, it was the first time that one of the 2 year olds had pooped in the potty. Excitment and cheers could probably be heard around the neighborhood, as the family (ok maybe just the parents) celebrated this great accomplishement.