I have to offer this disclaimer before you read:
At the bottom of this post is a picture that may offend some. Grace just wanted to show her owie, like she has to the former Stake President, everyone at the bank, church, grocery store, and Target. It happens to be on "the special finger", and she has it in "the special position" when showing it. So, read on if you dare.
At dinner tonight, Joey pulled up his pant leg to show us what he does in his down time. We were surprised (but why was I surprised?) to find an almost-complete game of tic tac toe right there on his knee. That was a new one.
Now, for the story of the dangerous treadmill. The other day I was working to clear off the shelf that has been dirty since we put in our built-in cabinets downstairs (with the help of the ever-so-handy Uncle Sam. Thanks, Uncle Sam!) Grace had been bugging me about wanting to play on the treadmill, which I let her do as long as I am standing behind her, ready to catch in case she should biff it. So I told her to wait just a minute while I ran some books upstairs. While putting away said books, I hear Joey screaming at me that "Grace is dead!" At least that's what I thought he said. He actually said, "Grace hit 10!" I ran down as fast as my slightly overweight legs could carry me, to find her slouching at the bottom of the stairs with her pouty face on. The treadmill had been turned off, and she was okay.
That's what I thought, anyway, until I saw the blood. So here's a rundown of her owies: she skinned her chin, above her lip, her upper arm, and her ankle. She crushed her "special finger" and skinned it as well. She had a paper cut looking thing on the underside of the same finger. Bandaging her up was quite a treat. We kept checking the finger to make sure it wasn't broken.
All is well now, except she still can't wear closed shoes or socks, because the owie on her ankle sticks to them and peels off when we remove them. She also still can't take a bath (it's been a week) because the owies sting. But she'll be fine. She has been busy, as I said above, showing the world her owies. Luckly, people see how cute she is and immediately forgive her crude behavior.
Oh, by the way, the true story about how the 10 got pushed came out later that day. Grace told me that it was Joey who hit the 10. When I asked him about it, he said he was trying to get it to "go up" (the incline), but by mistake hit the speed. Poor kid felt awful. But not awful enough to tell the truth:) We had a quick discussion about lying, but I could tell he learned his lesson.
That's the story of our week, but I also wanted to include a link to a blog (you've probably already heard of it -- it's pretty popular, and the story has been on Oprah, the Today Show, newspapers, and many other places -- but I wouldn't know because I don't watch any of those!). My friend just told me about it on Saturday. So I looked it up and now I want to share it with you. It's truly an inspiring story about a completely amazing mom who got into a small plane crash (a very sore subject with me anyway), and ended up burned terribly, but alive. You should give it a read. Here's the link to the blog, and also a link to the whole story in an Arizona newspaper.
