Our Biggest Mess: Kitchen Floor (and a trip to the ER)

I got a fancy ice cream maker that doesn’t need ice and salt. It whips up a batch of goodness in just 20 minutes! I’m so excited. Be prepared for ice cream recipes in your future.

We went to church, took naps, and got ready to visit Bonnie in the nursing home. My sister is on a mission in Argentina and she is able to call home twice a year: Christmas and Mother’s Day! I’d been looking forward to talking to her all week, so when her call came through I was ecstatic. I was on the porch chatting when I heard Henry crying. I didn’t address him, crying isn’t a new sound, and I only had ten minutes to talk to my sister until the phone call next Christmas. Henry walked around the corner of the house and he was covered in blood. I scooped him up and took him to his dad. Thomas got a towel on his head and decided he needed to go to the Emergency Room. One downside of small-town living is that none of the doctors have after-hours options and there isn’t even an instacare-type place. The hospital was our only option and it is a full 15 minutes away. I got the other kids into the car and then held Henry on my lap so that I could hold the towel to his head. He actually fell asleep on the way there which was weird, but at least he wasn’t crying!

The nurse in the ER got him all cleaned off and put some numbing medicine on the cut. When the doctor came in he told us he was hoping to glue the cut shut instead of stitching it. When he took the guaze off to take a look he was so rough – just poked and prodded! I could see Henry’s scalp bone when he looked at the cut. So gross. He said the cut was too big to glue and stitches would be needed. They had me take our two other kids out to the waiting room and Thomas stayed to help hold Henry down. I could hear him screaming in the waiting room which made me cry. It took 10 or 15 minutes to finish and then I was allowed back in. My poor baby looked terrible, but he was smiling again as soon as they were done.

We went home, ate some dinner, and went to bed. After enough correctly asked questions we figured out that Henry was looking for his “toady” (toad) who lives inside our sprinkler valve box (he does this a lot). While he was leaning over his hands must have slipped and he fell into the box and hit his head on the metal knob. When I went to turn on the sprinklers the next day the handle was bloody which made me feel sick to my stomach. Poor little man; at least it wasn’t anything worse.

Here’s the box the toad lives in:

The baby was so helpful. 😉

And here’s the finished product! It’s snap-together, floating laminate flooring. It has a lot of red in it which is beautiful with the green walls. Our cabinets are the same color. I thoughtthe cookiesmight help you gauge the color on your computer screen. 🙂

In December we rearranged the layout of our cabinets to fit in a dishwasher (yippee). We just bought the in-stock Maple cabinets from Home Depot, so when we needed to get another few cabinets we just assumed that in-stock meantin-stock. We went to grab the other cabinets we needed on Friday night and to order our carpet only to find out that they did not have the cabinets that we need and we will have to wait 2 weeks to have them shipped here. I could have cabinets and a real sink right now, but I don’t. I was devastated. I called my mom sobbing. If I had only known, I would have a pretty complete kitchen right now. Lesson learned: never assume “in-stock” means they’ll have what you need.

So now my kitchen looks like this instead of complete like I thought it would today.

On a brighter note, Thomas did start on my pantry. I’m in love already.

I’m in love with the floor and so are the kids. Henry kept laying on it and rolling around on top of it. When he woke up on Sunday morning he asked if he could eat breakfast on it. It’s fun to see them excited about our progress.

Now I just have to wait for the cabinets to come in and the carpet should go in just behind them. The floor won’t be so dirty and dusty all of the time once the carpet is in. I can’t even wait; it’s really starting to look andfeellike a house again.

If your new here, I’d love for you to take a look around. More info on our remodel is under the “Our Biggest Mess” tab at the top.