This is a post of 2 completely different stories.

1. Brady and the Library

Last Thursday morning, I asked Brady he if wanted to go to the library for a while. We had a pile of books due and I told him he could pick out some more. He was eager to go and, before we left, he grabbed all of the change in his allowance jar, asking me if I thought the library might need more money to buy books. I honestly didn’t know, but I said he could take it with him. By the time he picked out literally 20 books, I had completely forgotten about the money. He had it in his fist…which he bumped repeatedly into my leg as I was handing over our books to the lady at the front desk. “Oh! I said – I’m not sure if you can help me, but my son wanted to bring all of his change in today and wondered if you guys might be collecting money to buy more books”. The lady who was helping me, plus the girl sitting next to her, literally went ga-ga. One started writing down his information, telling him how generous he was while the other ran off in search of the library camera. They asked us to come around behind the circulation desk, took his picture, told him more about how awesome he was ;) and asked if it would be OK to post his story on facebook. I didn’t think they would do it, but they did! The best best thing about this story is the WONDERFUL positive reaction Brady got for his first big philanthropic deed…I hope it will inspire him to be generous and think of others even more in the future!

here is a screen print I took of the facebook post…

So now for the thing that totally freaked me out:

2. Yesterday morning, Logan and Aiden were playing football in the house before school (despite the fact that in-house football playing is currently prohibited because Logan smashed the xbox kinect controller and broke it last week). Logan went to throw the ball and WACKED his hand into a wall in the foyer. He ran into the kitchen where I was making breakfast and packing lunches yelling, “owww! oww! That REALLY REALLY hurt!” He grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and was standing right in front of me when he said, “Whoa…I don’t feel so good…I feel really weird.” I told him to sit down so he started to try and sit, but fell over on his side on the floor, knocking the dog’s water bowl over and sort of collapsed. I screamed for Brian who was upstairs. This is what happened next:

Me (literally SCREAMING): Brian! GET DOWN HERE NOW!

Brian: What? Why?

Me: BRRRRRIAN!

Brian: Can you at least tell me why I’m coming down there so I know what I’m getting myself in to?

Me: BRRRRRRIAN!!!!

Logan started coming around, blinking. Brian appeared in the kitchen from the back stairs and I said, “I think Logan had a seizer.” I said that because he was sort of shaking and literally drooling. Turns out after some internet research and further questioning that it was definitely not a seizer, but he did faint.

Logan then jumped up on his feet, started this sort of “calm down” motion with his hands and said in a very firm voice, “It’s OK…I remember everything…2 plus 2 is 4.”

We took him to the couch where Brian did some more questioning (including how old is your mom?, what is the date? and when is mommy’s birthday? <—how about “how old are YOU?”) Anyway, he got all the answers correct and I insisted that he start drinking a LOT of water. He said he was fine to go to school…and he did. I spoke with the nurse after drop-off and she went directly to the teacher’s room to tell her what happened. I was in volunteering in his classroom later that day and all was well. I, however, had a horrible morning. I kept re-living the whole incident and feeling totally freaked. I know it’s really a minor thing in the scope of what could happen to your child – there are families that deal with WAY WAY more drastic things, but it did give me some perspective on how very truly lucky we are to have three healthy little boys. I’m absolutely sure that the fainting episode was a combination of early morning dehydration, lack of food and a huge WACK to his finger. phew!