tiredmommy
Well-Known Member
We have been going and going for weeks now: Duckie was in rehearsal for all of November with shows the first two weeks of December. Then the big holiday prep started. Duckie's asthma has been erratic with problems for a day or two then bouncing back. husband has been either using up vacation days or working from home. We've been bouncing from holiday event to holiday event. My planned day off (Christmas Day) was diminished by Duckie staying up and us only getting 2.5 hours sleep (it's hard to relax when you're exhausted). Her behavior has been as erratic as her asthma. I've been seriously grieving my kitty we lost last summer and feeling horrible & guilty that I don't feel grief-strickened about the first Christmas since my mother died. And I have a cold.
So I brought Duckie sledding with her cousins today. There is one girl 11 year old K, Duckie age 9, twin sisters S & age 9, and twin sisters Mi & Ma age 4. Cousin B, her husband D, my cousin-in-law P were there.
D was at the top of the hill and his job was to load the sleds with various kids and send them down the hill. The women (B, P & myself) stayed at the bottom to "catch" and send the girls back up the hill.
So everything was fine (except for a few kid meltdowns, not Duckie) when D sent S & Mi down the hill. They strayed sideways and rolled. S bounced right up but Mi stayed down. All three of us sprinted. During all this (actually as the sled rolled), D let the next sled go. He must not have realized what was happening. The second sled was the three seater holding Duckie, Ma, & E... and it was heading right for sled #1 and little Mi. I reached sled #1 just as they were closing in on it and moved Mi out of the way as S was dragging the sled out of the way. Mi was okay, just startled.
But B, unfortunately, was not as fast as I was and ended up having to leap over sled #2 as it whipped by... and she just grazed Duckie with her boot and got snow in her face. Poor P ran to stop sled #2 and found Duckie and Ma hysterical and E just really frightened. Duckie was okay but needed her inhaler because she was so stressed out. She told me she was terrified that someone was going to get really hurt or killed and there wasn't anything she could do... so she just held onto little Ma as tight as possible so she wouldn't go flying when they hit.
I'm so done.
So I brought Duckie sledding with her cousins today. There is one girl 11 year old K, Duckie age 9, twin sisters S & age 9, and twin sisters Mi & Ma age 4. Cousin B, her husband D, my cousin-in-law P were there.
D was at the top of the hill and his job was to load the sleds with various kids and send them down the hill. The women (B, P & myself) stayed at the bottom to "catch" and send the girls back up the hill.
So everything was fine (except for a few kid meltdowns, not Duckie) when D sent S & Mi down the hill. They strayed sideways and rolled. S bounced right up but Mi stayed down. All three of us sprinted. During all this (actually as the sled rolled), D let the next sled go. He must not have realized what was happening. The second sled was the three seater holding Duckie, Ma, & E... and it was heading right for sled #1 and little Mi. I reached sled #1 just as they were closing in on it and moved Mi out of the way as S was dragging the sled out of the way. Mi was okay, just startled.
But B, unfortunately, was not as fast as I was and ended up having to leap over sled #2 as it whipped by... and she just grazed Duckie with her boot and got snow in her face. Poor P ran to stop sled #2 and found Duckie and Ma hysterical and E just really frightened. Duckie was okay but needed her inhaler because she was so stressed out. She told me she was terrified that someone was going to get really hurt or killed and there wasn't anything she could do... so she just held onto little Ma as tight as possible so she wouldn't go flying when they hit.
I'm so done.
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We grew up sledding and tobogganning a lot in Colorado and Wisconsin, back in the days when parents just sent kids out the door alone or in groups to have fun. 
