Car Accident

For once I have a story (albeit not a good one!) about me instead of Andrew. When I was coming home from lunch yesterday, I ended up getting hit by a guy that turned left in front me. I was going straight through a green light, and he thought he had a green arrow to turn left onto I-90, so he ended up turning when he should have been yielding to me. As I came through the light, and I saw him start his turn, I slammed on the brakes, but there just wasn't enough time. He hit my driver's side door (in a Suburban!) and I hit the guard rail on my right. I will never forget the sound of the crash when he made impact. It was just horrible. After he hit me, I felt two other hits, and I was just praying it would all end. I had my foot on the brake the whole time, and once it all ended, my car was still moving forward. I put the car in park and then brought up the parking brake, and I stopped rolling after a few more seconds.

There was a girl behind us that called 911, and the guy that hit me came up to the window. He worked for ComEd, and was working a shift when the accident happened. The door would not open, so they helped me out of the passenger side. My phone, which was on the passenger side seat, was missing (later found it under my seat), and the sunglasses I was wearing were on the floor of the passenger's side. The guy that hit me apologized over and over again, and I actually felt pretty bad for him. He said he thought he had an arrow, but realized when it was too late that he did not. At that point, I had a lot of pain in my side, but I didn't think there was anything seriously wrong with me. I called Mike's mom, who was watching Andrew, and she ended up calling Mike, who then left work. I also called Tammy, because I just left from seeing her at lunch, and she also came up. After 25 minutes, the police had not arrived still, and the witness called 911 again.

The funny part of this story (if there could be a funny part), was that I had to pee so bad that I could not hold it much longer. Tammy said she would run me over to the gas station across the street to go to the bathroom. So I am holding my back from the pain and trying to go to the bathroom. While we are coming out of the gas station, we hear all these sirens and horns, and I said, "there is no way that is for me after 40 minutes, right?" They indeed end up pulling up by the accident, and so now there are a ton of cop cars, an ambulance, and I can't remember if there was a fire truck or not, but now there is a scene. We roll up in Tammy's car, and there are a bunch of paramedics in the road looking for me. It was almost comical. Oh, are you looking for an injured victim? That's me. I just needed to pee.

The paramedics brought me into the ambulance, and they knew there was nothing seriously wrong with me, but thought I should get checked out for internal injuries since I was having the back pain. I told them I would rather go myself than ride by ambulance, and so we headed over to urgent care once everything was in order. It took almost 2 hours to clean everything up, tow both cars, get a report, etc. We ended up at urgent care for hours, as well, and found that the "back pain" I was having was my ribs. They took x-rays and didn't see any cracks, so we are assuming I'm just going to be really sore for a while. I can't bend down or twist, but other than that I'm doing fine.  I took my pain medication and muscle relaxer last night, and slept pretty well. Things could have been so much worse.

Today Mike and I went over to the collision place to get things out of my car, and I took a few pictures. We will found out tomorrow if they will repair it or total it out. We really want them to repair it, because I bought that car new 8 years ago, and it only has 60,000 miles now. I know where the car has been, and we have taken good care of it. I don't want a car payment, and the car is not worth a ton of money at this point. There is a good chance we would need to spend a bit more money if I have to get another one. Guess we will see what they say tomorrow.

We then headed over to Enterprise to get a rental.  It was hard to believe this was an actual Enterprise, because they told us the only car they have is the Chevy Aveo out front, and it was almost out of gas. We couldn't help but laugh. Ummm, we'll take it! I'm not sure if a car seat will fit back there, but we will see.

I put some pics of the damage below that I took today. I almost cried when I saw it, because I have had so many memories with my little car! It was my first new car, and we took it all over Arizona. I remember the day after I got it, and my co-workers and I admired it from the window at work. I was so proud! I also remember taking Jez to the dog park every day in AZ while she hung her head out the window. She still does that when I take her to different parks here. There may still be a chance they can fix it, but I don't have high hopes at this point.

Andrew and the fork...He did it!

I am just so excited tonight! Andrew used his fork by himself for the first time! While he did not pierce his carrot with the fork, he picked the carrot up, put it on the fork, and then put the fork in his mouth.While a small milestone, the proud feeling you get is amazing! :)

I can do it by myself!

Andrew has just become such an independent little guy these last few weeks and wants things to go his way. If not, watch out! He does not want to be confined to anything (this is nothing new) and he wants to walk (not be carried). He also wants nothing to do with holding my hand. He wants his freedom!

In this picture, he begged me to put his boots on, and then when we didn't go outside (we just came in 15 minutes prior), he was not a happy camper!

About to let me have it again for not going outside...

Here he is at the park the other day. He would have spent the night there if I let him. This is me leaving and waving bye to him.

He did walk all the way back to the car, though, which was impressive! The getting in the car part was not so impressive. I thought I was going to have to call Mike at work for a second, because I couldn't get him in his car seat. I wasn't sure what to do. I considered doing a Britney Spears and driving home with him on my lap. Now that he can put his feet on the back of the seat with his new car seat, he even uses the back of the seat to do his back-bend and locks in place. It's all a little comical when I think of somebody walking by watching me try to pin him down with my elbows while getting the straps on him.

He has also been making me laugh this week. We are still working on getting used to his "toothbrush", and he was doing a good job until he started brushing the dog with it.

Nothing like a snack after brushing your teeth and the dog...

He has also been getting off his schedule a bit since he was sick for the first half of the week. I couldn't get him to go to bed the other night, because he was crying and coughing. The second he gets out, he walks to the kitchen, opens up the stove drawer, and takes a pan out and sits in it.

Today I would tell him to "say mama", and he would say, "dada", and burst into laughter throwing his head back. He had me laughing so hard, that we did it all afternoon. When Mike got home, I had him do it for him, and of course he loved it! Andrew just loves his daddy. When Mike got home from golfing this morning, he "golfed" with Andrew in the living room for a while. Andrew is really great at watching somebody do something and then imitating it right away. He was supposed to get his new golf set for Easter, but he saw it when I was cleaning the closet this morning, and of course I could not resist giving it to him!

He has also been into offering people his food lately. I am the only person that will take the food from his grubby little hands into my mouth. :) Here he is offering me a goldfish.

On Wednesday night, we went to go see Tammy's son, Kaden, play basketball. While Andrew did not want me to carry him in or hold his hand, he did a really great job of sitting still for most of the game. Emily and her mom, Kathie, came to the game, too.

Please don't touch me...

Do I look nervous here?

Last night Mike's parents had us over for dinner, and his mom cooked us a delicious dinner. Andrew loves going there to see them and to play with all the toys they have over there for the grand kids. Today Andrew and I hung around the house while Mike went golfing. Andrew ended up getting his first scraped knee (and face). We were blowing bubbles in the driveway, and he was running for one of the bubbles and fell. He went down on his knee and actually rolled after landing, so his face got it too. They were both just bleeding a little bit, but I think my gasp through the neighborhood scared him the most. I don't think we will be doing as much playing in the driveway. It's just the basement well in the backyard makes me so nervous that I want to stay away from that until we get it covered. I have to think of something, because he wants to spend 100% of this time outside. He needs more toys and a safe place to play. I'll get it figured out!

Welcome, Spring...errr, Summer??

OK, so I thought were out of the woods with everybody being sick, but it looks like Andrew and Mike are sick now.  Mike somehow survived the last round where Andrew, Lauren, and I were sick. This new virus is probably coming my way over the next few days, but you never know. I put Andrew down about an hour early tonight, and his temp was 101, so hopefully he is feeling better tomorrow.

I'm not sure what is going on with the weather, but it has been 70's and 80's for the last week. I was not ready for such freakish weather, so Andrew did not have any summer clothes at all, and I barely had anything for him to wear until I bought some some stuff at lunch on Friday. Here is is wearing some boxers that were very tight and a shirt from last year that still fit. You can see he has about 10 different shades of blue on with some dress shoes (his only shoes). Apparently, he is also unhappy with the outfit, as he is going through his hamper for something else to wear.

The other clothes I found that were summer clothes were some ASU clothes my friend, Nicki, sent last year. So cute! He is ready to watch the tournament!

One of the million times he gets his shoes in any given day and brings them to you to put on...

He also wore his dress shoes with his basketball "uniform", because he didn't have anything else to wear.

He did get a chance to wear his spring pajamas, though! I thought I wouldn't be able to break these out until May or so. Here he is wearing his "Monster Hugs" and "Sleepy Monkey" p.j's.

I have been trying to get him to eat different things, and I found an idea online Friday about mixing peas with mac and cheese. So, I get everything prepared, and that little stinker actually separated all of the peas from the noodles and put them in a pile. He then threw a bunch of them on the floor and even Jez wouldn't eat them.

However, I shredded carrots in his grilled cheese yesterday and got away with it, so we are one and one. I will win this battle. :)

I also realized after hanging out in the yard for a few days that he had nothing to play with but the dog's frisbee.

Andrew and I went on a little ToysRUs shopping spree yesterday, and I got him a water table, a lawn mower, and a canopy for his new wagon.

He's a mowing machine! He is also wearing some normal clothing and shoes that I bought on Friday.

This water table was only a hit inside the house. Once I filled it with water outside, he wasn't as interested. He and Mike played with it inside last night for a about 30 minutes. They had a blast.

I even broke out the old pool yesterday, but he wasn't too interested with that, either. His swim trucks still fit, and they are 6-9 months!

 The dog's frisbee is still a pretty big hit...

Here are some silly pics of him eating...

This morning, Mike's mom was nice enough to come over and watch Andrew while Mike went golfing, and I went hiking with my dad and the dogs. It was nice to get outdoors after being cooped up all winter. Now I just hope Mike and Andrew get to feeling better this week!