Nate Goes to the E.R.

When your big family van starts smoking and the mechanic tells you it will be $850 to fix it, you go to plan B and figure out how to get 4 of your men to their places of work, each in a different city, with only two cars.  Then, when your husband's Subaru freaks out and the mechanic tells you it will be $1,500-$2,000 to fix that, you sigh a little and suck it up and realize you will be spending the rest of your summer as a taxi driver.  Juggling children of all ages. In 90 degree weather.  With no air conditioning in the car.  

1 car x 4 workers x 4 different cities = Taxi Mom.

And when you have two weeks to get everything ready for your son to go to music school in Kansas City- your very first child to leave home- and everyone is weepy and his housing situation has changed at the last minute and you still need to get your school books and plans together for your remaining children and your littlest boy is only sort-of getting this whole potty-training thing and your third son wants to change his plans for his early college just when you had decided on them then you may find yourself thinking that this. is. a. lot.  But you can handle it, because it's your life.

Then, on park day, when one of your boys has your only car in Denver, and two boys are in Castle Rock, and one boy is at a friend's an hour away (just about near Kansas!) and another boy is down the road at a friend's, and your husband is working on getting a ride to a church men's meeting, you might be a little surprised to get a call from the friend down the road telling you that your 8 year-old just broke his arm.

And when you hear his crying in the background of the phone, your start to cry yourself. And when you climb into your friend's car and sit next to your little boy, you kiss his fuzzy head and look reassuringly into his eyes and you think, "You know, all that other stuff will take care of itself.  This is what I'm doing.  I get to comfort this little guy all evening."  And the rest of the night you get to be his best Mom.  

I think that's the best thing in the world.

Nate didn't even fall off the trampoline.  He fell on it.  Problem is, his arm was under him.  And he had been bounced very high before he fell.
He was so tough in the ER.  I was really proud of him.

Waiting for the green light to go home.  He was pretty loopy here.  His eyeballs were just not doing normal things.  And in between saying loudly, "This is weeeeeeird!" he would look for me and ask for me.  And I was right there, rubbing his fuzzy head.