They Come in Threes

That's the line, right?  Things tend to come in threes?  Last week, in the course of 24 hours, three big things happened.  The last one isn't such a big deal though, unless you're a seven year old kid.

A week ago on Friday afternoon I was at a complete stop on our road waiting to cross a lane of traffic in order to take a left-hand turn into our own driveway.  There were several cars behind me who were also stopped, so I guess the jackass in the big pickup behind all those cars decided he didn't want to wait in the line of stopped traffic.  He pulled out into the left lane, facing oncoming traffic, and proceeded to pass the entire line of cars.  I began to take the left turn as he was passing me (but of course I didn't look behind me before I turned), and I didn't see him until just after he'd slammed my front left bumper and kept on going, swerving back into the right lane to avoid a head-on collision.  And kept on going.  And going.

I was in shock because I couldn't believe that someone had hit me, and in even more shock that he left the scene of the accident.  It took me a minute to remember what I was supposed to do, and then I realized oh yeah, call the police.  All I could do was describe the car, he'd been going too fast to catch the license plate, and no one else who stopped had gotten it either.

About 15 minutes later when Zach had gotten home, I was in the driveway showing him the damage when a saint disguised as an ordinary citizen pulled in the driveway and produced the license plate number of the pick-up who'd hit me.  He'd followed him about 4 miles down the road before catching up and getting close enough to read the plate.  Then he drove all the way back here to give us the best pre-Christmas gift ever.

With the license plate number the police were able to get the guy and slap him with a bunch of tickets.  He's 19, a local college student (everyone had said, oh it must have been a college student) from the school down the road, and was driving an unregistered vehicle not belonging to him.

Anyway, we're all ok, the kids were in the car with me, so it could have been much, much worse.  A few feet more and I might not be here, or Jacob, or Sabine, because I figure he was going about 50mph.  But MY KIDS WERE IN  THE CAR WITH ME.  I am so pissed that someone could, and would, do something like that.  We knew it was only a matter of time before one of those ass-hole drivers that we see on our road all the time would come to affect us personally.  Now we have a real incident to refer to when Jacob wants to know why he's not allowed to go in the front yard.  I'm surprised that I'm not more shaken up about what could have happened, but maybe all the other things going on have kept me too busy to think about it that much.

The same night as the car accident, Jacob was on the kitchen counter and decided to jump off onto the floor.  he landed with both feet, but flat-footed.  I think most everyone knows the difference between landing properly and landing with your whole foot like that.  The impact rushes up your whole body and shakes you, almost like getting the wind knocked out of you, but in a vertical way.  In the middle of the night is when he started crying about pain in his foot but we just assumed it was growing pains like he usually has.

The next day it was still hurting him, so we gave it another night and then brought him in for x-rays on Sunday.  They didn't find anything, but that night into the morning brought even more pain so we took him to see a specialist on Monday afternoon and it was decided that there was, in fact, a small break.  He's got a cast now and is getting along pretty well.

The last thing that happened is that over the weekend Jacob presented us with his usual, "I think I have a loose tooth," which is usually wishful thinking on his part, because he'd never had a loose tooth before, and had been desperate for one.  But when I stuck my finger into his mouth to feel it, I was totally grossed out by a definite wiggle in the bottom left toother! 

I actually feel like he got a little cheated on the loose tooth thing because he's been waiting for so long, and now it's kind of overshadowed by the cast.  Two childhood rites of passage at the same time! 

It was hard explaining to people what happened to Jacob's foot, that's the reason we eventually settled on the jumping-off-the-counter explanation, because as best we can figure that's when it happened?  But I almost wish I could use the car accident as the reason, it would be easier to explain why both these things just happened to occur on the same day.  And I've been privately joking with Jacob that the car accident must have shook him tooth loose.

Anyway, I remember the Christmas when I was seven, I was waiting for my two front teeth to grow in and I thought it was so cool that I could sing that song, All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  Jacob keeps asking when his tooth is going to fall out; with his luck of late, I wouldn't be surprised if the tooth fairy and Santa Clause showed up on the same night.  I'll just make sure we don't leave the tooth anywhere near the cookies.  Santa would never forgive us if we accidentally fed him a lost tooth!