This, That, and Baseball

Why I haven't been able to get back in the swing of blogging is beyond me because believe me, it is certainly not for lack of material...

Dracen took a bad spill on his skateboard a couple of Saturdays ago and, of course, I was not in walking distance of him as always seems to be the case when that child of mine is involved in an "incident". He was at the park with Devin and some friends and luckily, was aided my some moms who saw him fall. Devin called me on his cell prompting me to jump in the car and tear across town like a bat out of h.e. double hockey sticks, shaking the entire way. 

Turns out he was just scraped up. A lot. And probably left a bit of his skin on the pavement but it was nothing a little love, ginormous band-aids and antibiotic ointment couldn't fix, although I have to admit I did my share of fussing during the doctoring process because he went down a hill he wasn't supposed to be going down while not wearing a helmet he was supposed to be wearing. He still insists on learning all his lessons the hard way which I am convinced is adding to my unwanted collection of gray hairs and forehead wrinkles. 

When I was almost done cleaning his wounds and applying his bandages I noticed he was chewing on a piece of gum so I said, "Have you had that gum the whole time? How in the world have you managed to keep that in your mouth through this entire thing?" He didn't seem to have an answer at the moment but I could tell he was pondering it. About that time Shana (who was home from school for Spring Break) and her new boyfriend (whom we had not yet met) came through the door. We joined them in the sunroom a few minutes later and Dracen (fully calm now) began his story.

Turns out he was almost to the bottom of the hill when he panicked or "wussed out" as he so eloquently put it and made the quick and most unfortunate decision to jump off the skateboard that was carrying him at a speed his long spindly legs (as fast as they normally are) could not quite match. I expect him to have at least one scar to help him to always remember that bad decision by and, hopefully and God-willing, keep him from making again in the future. 

But the very best part of this story came when he looked at us all with the most serious of faces and said (as he pointed to his mouth), "You know this gum and I have really been through a lot together." 

Priceless.

In other (not so priceless) news, I had a little fender bender at the high school after a baseball parent meeting a couple of weeks ago. I've been driving now for a good 25 years and (knock on wood) have never had a serious accident nor have I caused an accident while on the road. I'm normally very defensive in my driving which I know has prevented many accidents-about-to-happen. It's like I have some sort of sixth sense when somebody is about to do something foolish on the road in my presence. 

But for whatever reason, twice now in the past year and a half, I have been the initiator of stupid-moves-in-school-parking-lots. Remember when I rolled into the back of that BRAND NEW CAR the year before last in the middle school drop off line and had to get out in front of God and everybody in my cropped sweats and sparkly shoes? If not you can read all about it here. Thankfully there was no damage that time. 

Well this time what I did was even more stupid. 

I was in the lane to turn right out of the parking lot and there was a whopper of a pickup truck in the lane to turn left. I couldn't see around him so I inched up a little but saw a car coming and thought I was sticking out a little too close to the road so I backed up. Without looking. WHAM. Ohhh....snap! Both boys were in the car and Devin just buried his head and mumbled something I'm glad I didn't quite catch and I got out to assess the damage. (in front of God and everybody once again)

I had slammed into the truck of one of the boys from the varsity team and there was a pretty huge dent in his bumper which he informed me was already there but the little reflector light was broken and something was bent around it.  We sat there while everyone was forced to go around us until his dad got there. It was probably no more than five minutes but felt like five million.   

Super fun times. 

Thankfully though, everyone was kind, an estimate was done and I wrote a check to cover the damages. The tiny dent in my own bumper was the least of my worries. I think it complements the baseball dent in the hood and the cleat marks in the dashboard. Also, I just this minute realized that all the damages to my car (that I've owned for seven years now) have a common denominator and that common denominator goes by the name of Baseball.