Tough as a Pine Knot

You've just seen the pictures, so you know what has taken place. Long story short, Kenzie was running at Mom's while carrying a bunch of books for Granddad to read to her. She tripped and fell into the coffee table, busting her chin. After deciding that this injury required more than a band-aid, we headed back to Knoxville to Children's Hospital. I was hoping we would get away with just a butterfly bandage or something, but it didn't turn out that way.

Now, it's important to point out that when we first saw Kenzie, you would have thought that we were offering to treat her cut with salt or something, because she was screaming and fighting us just looking at it. We really didn't know what to expect from the E.R. visit, but if last weeks visit to the pediatrician for shots was any indication, things weren't going to go well. During the hour long drive, I fully prepared myself to hold back tears while they tortured my baby.

We arrived and to our amazement, we didn't wait long, nor did Kenzie cause a fuss when they took her band-aid off in triage to replace it with lidocaine gel and a piece of tape. We were assured that the gel was pretty much the stuff that miracles are made of, and it turned out, they were right.

While we waited to see the doctor, I explained exactly what they were going to do and told her that if she would be very still while they used their "string band-aids", we would get out of there much sooner and that we would head straight to Toys R Us for a special toy afterwards. I was still apprehensive about them scrubbing the wound clean and actually stitching her up, but they said they have a girl that comes in with toys and bubble to distract kids while they have procedures done. We honestly thought that it wouldn't matter if Spongebob himself showed up, nothing was going to distract Kenzie from someone coming at her face with needles.

As it turned out, we were totally wrong.

Kenzie didn't move a muscle the entire time and didn't cry a single tear. We were about to burst with pride and were relieved that we didn't have to see her suffer. (Plus, I also knew that my kid would be one that was remembered as incredibly well behaved and brave once we left).

After being given a popsicle at the hospital and checking out, we drove straight to Toys R Us and told her she could pick out anything she wanted. We were so proud, she could have asked for a tree-house and we probably would have said, "sure honey, whatever you want- did you want a pet goat as well?"

Lucky for us, she decided on Play Doh and a little baby doll.

Murphy's Law at it's finest

You know, I feel awful that I have not yet posted about Kenzie's third birthday, but this is worth writing down before I forget about details. And I promise I will post about her birthday as well as our recent camping trip. This just could not wait, you see.

We have been looking for a bed for Kenzie. A big girl bed. And not just any old bed will do. I had a picture in my mind of what I was looking for and so for the past three days, Erin, Kenzie, and I have been shopping for a bed. Like shopping where you look at a bunch of places, compare pros and cons as well as prices, and leave every place with nothing. Well, yesterday, we had finally decided on a bed (a cream wooden day bed with a trundle/storage drawer underneath), went back to one of the places we had visited, and Erin had negotiated a very handsome price.

He got them to knock off a little over $400 below the sale price.

We were walking out, feeling really good about ourselves for getting such an awesome price break. I mean, we had really done our homework and put in time at these stores! On the way out this salesman asked,

"Are you guys driving that G37 outside?"

"Yes", we replied.

"Did you know that you have a tire that's almost flat?"

I wasn't really excited to hear him ask that, but I thought "whatev, we just saved $400 and the tire probably just needs some air". So we left and did find that our tire appeared to be struggling pretty badly. We drove to an air pump nearby and decided that something was clearly wrong with the machine, because it wouldn't put air into my tire. Then we drove to a Pep Boys a mile away and after a failed attempt at airing the tire, they told Erin to take the wheel off. And you know, they didn't offer to do this for us even though they had a couple guys standing around doing nothing, as well as a bay open in the garage. But I digress.

Erin takes the tire off (in the parking lot of Pep Boys. . .a car garage!) and finds a nail in it. Not what we were wanting to see, but we were hoping it could be fixed since no one (seriously, no one) carries my size tire in stock. (see for yourself- it's a 245/40-19) He carries it over and the guy points out a 3 inch gash in the inner side wall. Totally not fixable. Terrific.

This next part is Murphy's Law at it's finest.

Anyone know how much that tire is? Anyone? I've replaced this size before on the G35 I had before, so I'm quite familiar with the price.

It's just over $400, of course.

*UPDATE*

In true Murphy's Law style, when I took the car in on Monday to have the one tire fixed, I was informed that the opposite tire had 2 nails in it. Two! I don't frequently drive my car through construction sites or take it muddin' so I'm not sure how that happened. Either way, I ended up replacing BOTH tires. It was wonderful.