The Scream

Today, being the Victoria Day "holiday", we had made plans with my youngest sister and her daughter to come out for a visit - and then later we'd planned to all have a family dinner next door at my parents. J was very excited about seeing his cousin M - and we actually turned down another "invite" which also would have been a lot of fun (note to self - check JH's blog to see what we missed). Unfortunately, poor little M became sick as soon as they arrived. So, after she'd changed her clothes, back home they went. J was very disappointed.

We decided to do our own little "dike patrol" and took the dogs out for a long walk. The North Alouette river is still very low. Although J was bummed about M being sick, we still had a good time. That was until we returned and I happened to accidentally SLAM a door shut on his little thumb. The SCREAMMMMMM was almost deafening! And his poor little thumb was purple, pulsating (and no longer little!). I felt just terrible. The sobbing "Mommy, you really hurt me" didn't help. Now I was sick too - although he did eventually and abruptly stop the crying/screaming when I told him we'd probably need to go have it amputated.... Let me digress a moment here. I'm now thinking that my mother has told him about the time when I, at the young age of 6, had accidentally cut off my friend's middle finger. *STOP HERE IF YOU GET THE LEAST BIT QUEEZY (this is a true story). I still have nightmares about it.... My friend Fran and I had been merrily washing our new bikes and had turned them upside down to dry them (remember banana seats???). We were spinning the pedals as fast as we could to watch the water spin off. I still don't know how, but somehow her middle finger got caught in the chain, while I was still spinning those pedals as fast as I could. It was horrible - and it happened so fast. Her scream was worse than J's today - and so was mine. She was rushed to the hospital where it was re-attached while I had run home to hide under my bed (cowardly, I know). She had to undergo a lot of therapy over months and months to be able to move it. She eventually did, but there was a lot of nerve damage and she had little feeling in it after that. I remember helping her to print in Grade 1 when she was all bandaged up. To this day I still feel sick about it.

Anyway, with some ice (and ice cream) J did recover -- although his nail is still black. He even felt well enough to ask me to take him out for a bike ride. So out to the dikes we went again. He must have gained some trust back because he told me I was to ride on his right side to protect him from the bears (according to him, they must live on the right side of the dike). I did point out that the past few sightings/encounters with the bears had actually been on the "left" side. He proposed that I was to quickly change sides with him in the event of a bear sighting (on the left). I am somewhat relieved that he still has faith in my ability to protect him, even if I almost severed one of his appendages a few hours earlier. All in all it was a good day, and we later enjoyed a great curry dinner at my parents with J's Auntie K (my middle sister) from Chilliwack and her 2 dogs. P.S. No further emergency preparations accomplished today - feeling rather optimistic with the 2 week extension on the "possibility of floods" predictions.