By His Stripes

There are a few things that I am not so good at in this thing called motherhood.
I freak out when the kids puke.
And my heart stops beating in the middle of emergencies.

I have become much better over time when it comes to the emergency situations, but I think the puking will always send me into freak out mode. Yucky.

This week, Sierra gave me the opportunity to strengthen my first aid skills and abilities. I appreciate her willingness to teach me mommy lessons, but hope she refrains from that kind of "help" for a long time!
She was home from school on Tuesday. The poor girl gets a horrible cough this time of year, probably allergy related. She had coughed so hard at school on Monday that she got sick on her stomach. (Glad the school nurse had to deal with that puking, and not me!). So I kept her home Tuesday, hoping we could hydrate that cough out of her system.

It was a beautiful day on Tuesday and we spent a lot of time outdoors. By about 3:30, she and Dean were riding their bikes between our house and the church on a little stretch of asphalt that is visible from my kitchen window. Tyler had arrived home from school and was busying herself with chores and homework. I was in the kitchen with her and had moved back to the living room when I heard screams.

We must pause here.
You do realize that Sierra is my drama queen, right? Well understanding that, you must also be aware that at least once a day Sierra comes to me crying about some mild injury. I was expecting this to be the case.

She came through the door with blood pouring out of her mouth and a gigantic knot on her forehead. She wasn't screaming, she was almost hyperventilating and I realized this was not drama queen behavior. She was seriously hurt. I reacted quickly, taking her to the bathroom and cleaning off her mouth to check inside. I applied a cold rag to her forehead and then moved her to the couch. I quickly poured her a dose of children's ibuprofen and retrieved a bag of frozen peas from the freezer. She was still breathing weird and whimpering. I grabbed a flashlight to check her pupils and their ability to react to the light. Problem. They didn't react. At all.

Then I panicked. I called Michael, by now I was barely breathing. He calmed me down enough that I could call the doctor's office and speak with the emergency nurse. She talked me through how to check for concussion, gave me signs to watch for, and instructed me to watch her very closely for the next 2 hours and not to let her go to sleep. She encouraged me that I had done everything right up to that point.

So for the rest of the afternoon/evening on Tuesday, I was on "concussion watch". I checked her pupils periodically, kept her awake, and eventually she was calm and back to playing.




Sierra's goose egg about 30 minutes after her accident.

 Me... not so much.
After the incident was over and done, my body was beat tired.
Tuesday night I felt like I had been hit by a truck.
Being a mommy is hard, especially when they get hurt.

And though I took one step closer to perfecting my emergency skills, that wasn't my greatest lesson for the evening. As I rested on the couch in the quiet of the evening (after the kids had been sent to bed), Dean Kelly made his way from the bedroom to the living room. He came up to me with tears in his eyes and told me that everytime he closed his eyes that he saw Sierra crashing. He had been with her the whole time. He had watched her wreck on her bike, he had run back up to the house with her as she cried and screamed. I had been so consumed with caring for Sierra's wounds that I had neglected to check on my boy and whether or not he was okay. I hugged him and reassured him that Sierra was fine and had just had an accident. That appeased his little heart and he went back to bed.

Have you ever heard the expression, "while He was on the cross, I was on His mind"?
That's the lesson I learned.
My whole life I have been well aware of the pain and suffering that Christ suffered on the cross but Tuesday I paused for a moment and thought about how difficult it must have been for God the Father to allow His Son to endure that pain and torture. As a parent, we want to ease their hurts and "fix" their boo-boos. To think that God watched Jesus on the cross, knowing that it was necessary to bring redemption but at the same time hurting to see His Son in pain.

And then there's Dean. How often do I think about the suffering of Christ in such a way that it moves to me tears? Or do I just move on with my life, ignoring His sacrifice? If I was on His mind, shouldn't He be on mine?

My lesson? I need to be more like my Dean, passionately weeping for the death that my Savior died in my place. Hurting to know that He hurt. Suffering to know that He suffered.

Mommy life shows me lessons everyday.
And though I wish my Sierra could have avoided that bicycle accident on Tuesday, I am thankful for the simple reminder that Dean gave me. May you be mindful of your Savior's sufferings in these weeks leading up to Easter.