Think Out Loud #7: Bizarre Tales of Staying Home with Your Kids

Hey everyone! I'm now going to join the meme Think Out Loud hosted by Thinks Books. With this meme, you can post anything you want! Get to know other bloggers outside of the bookish realm. :)Click on the link to go to her blog and sign up. :) The posts go up on Thursdays. :D

Up until four years ago, I was a working mom. Then I became pregnant with my son, and my husband and I decided I would stay at home with the kids. My daughter was in kindergarten at the time, and since then, I've been home. I can go to any of her school events without having to request time off or, even worse, missing those events. I've had the chance to see my son grow up and reach all of the milestones - laughing out loud, crawling, walking, talking...it's been really cool getting to be there for all of my son's firsts. I didn't get to be for my daughter unfortunately.

Since I stopped working outside the home, some really crazy things have happened these past few years. When my daughter was seven and my son 11 months old, I had taken them out to get breakfast. We had just come home and I was getting my son out of the car when an old man pulled up in front of my house. I thought he wanted directions, and I looked over to see how I could help him. He rolled his window down and asked if he could give my kids suckers "to teach them the dangers of accepting candy from strangers." I told him thanks but no thanks. He's a stranger himself, so how would I teach my kids not to take candy from strangers by allowing them to take suckers from a stranger?!?

I was very polite, yet he began yelling and cussing at me, saying, "I'm not like that" over and over. I became very frightened and ran with my kids into the house. He peeled away. I didn't get a chance to get his license plate number but called the police anyway. I described his car and what happened. Soon, a police officer came to my door to check on us. The man had told me he goes to Walmart a lot, and I told the police officer that. He said he'd go out there. They found him and made sure he didn't do that anymore. He did that at Walmart all the time, and I don't understand why they allowed him to in the first place. Obviously he's unhinged if he's willing to drive around neighborhoods looking for kids. So there was that incident.

There was the time at the beginning of the school year when my daughter was in first grade that a boy accidentally knocked her down in gym, and two of her teeth went flying - one on the top row and one on the bottom directly underneath. Then at the end of her first grade year, she was knocked down in gym again, except this time it was outside on concrete. Her glasses were bent, and she hit her head on the concrete. On the way to the eye doctor to get her glasses fixed, she began vomiting, and I turned around and took her to the ER. She didn't have a concussion, but the doctor said the vomiting was probably from hitting her head on the concrete.

A couple months after the concussion scare, my son was eight months old and had to be taken to the ER. He was dehydrated and couldn't keep anything down. He had a high fever but couldn't keep medicine down long enough to take it away. Cool baths didn't work, so off to the ER we went. They gave him Pedialyte, and after a couple of days, he began to get better.

In the summer of 2011, a teenager in a giant black SUV broadsided my nice, bright Pontiac Vibe, completely totalling it. My dad, son (18 months old at the time), daughter, and I were all in the car. My dad, daughter, and son were checked out at the ER. I didn't need to be - I felt okay besides being bruised and cut from the air bag going off and the seat belt tightening against my throat. The kids were just fine. They had some cuts and bruising from their belts. My daughter uses a booster seat since she's short like me, and my son is still in a car seat, forward facing after he turned a year old. My dad was injured badly and almost had to be kept overnight. I'm sure by this time, my husband was nervous every time I called him since this was the third time I ended up in the ER with the kids.

Last summer, I fell stepping down from a porch where the outdoor carpeting was duct taped at the end and broke two bones in my ankle. Once again, I called my husband to tell him I was in the ER, and he left work to come be with me. This was the third time he left work to come to an ER! Poor guy! I had surgery and now have two metal pins and a screw in my ankle.

Last December, I had surgery again with my gallbladder being removed after suffering from gallbladder attacks for almost a year. That was crazy! Two surgeries for me in less than six months.

Now our son is going to have surgery due to cavities. We feel terrible because this totally could have been prevented, but it's too late now. We just have to make sure to reach the back of his teeth while brushing whether he likes it or not. *Sigh*

So there you go. My amazing adventures as a stay-at-home-mom. Stranger things have happened to people, I know, but so many strange things have happened to us these past few years, it makes me wonder. Should I just stay home this summer rather than risk getting into a car accident or breaking a bone?? Probably not. If something is going to happen, it's just going to happen, and it very well could be right in front of my house (I'm talking to you, creepy sucker guy). So, hopefully things will calm down, lol, especially now that I'm baby-sitting my 8-month-old niece. :D

Do you have any crazy stories whether you're a parent or not? What do you think of mine?