Emergency Room Visit #2 = "Hello, Mrs. Marsh. This is CPS Calling."

Once again, we visited the emergency room this past weekend to get stitches. While Sam and I were driving over to the hospital, this is the phone conversation I imagined having with a representative from Child Protective Services:

CPS: Hello, may we speak to a Mrs. Cathy Marsh?
Me: Yes, this is she. Who is calling?
CPS: Mrs. Marsh, this is Child Protective Services calling in regard to a report that was submitted by doctors at Marin General Hospital regarding your son Samuel.
Me: Yes?
CPS: It's been brought to our attention that your son has gone into the hospital to receive emergency services in less than two months. Is this correct?
Me: Yes but both of them were accidents.
CPS: Yes, Mrs. Marsh, they are all accidents but we must interview the parent in question once a report has been filed.
Me: Parent in question?????
CPS: Mrs. Marsh, can you tell us what happened on July 25, 2009?
Me: Sure. Well, Sam was playing with my Billy Blanks Tae Bo exercise bands and it snapped and wacked him in the head.
CPS: Billy Blanks what?
Me: Yeah, you know, Billy Blanks Tae Bo workouts? They have those exercise bands that attach to your foot and have handle bars and they stretch so when you punch you work out all the areas of your arm.....??? Do you know which ones I'm talking about?

CPS: I will note here that these are rubber. Is that correct?
Me: Yes
CPS: And what was he doing with them?
Me: He was stretching them to see how far they would go. Well, they stretched pretty far, actually. We did it a couple of times and then, all of a sudden, SNAP!
CPS: SNAP?
Me: Yes, the band broke off of the handle and it flew across the room and hit him in the head.
CPS: Flew across the room?
Me: Yes, well, they stretched pretty far...like I said before.
CPS: I see. Just to be clear, were you with him while he was stretching the, let's see, Billy Blanks Tae Bo exercise bands?
Me: Yes. My husband and I were holding the other handle bar side of the band. Good parenting, I know (nervous laughter on my part).
CPS: Interesting. I'll put that in the report. Can you tell us what happened in June when he visited the hospital?
Me: Yes but that was an accident.
CPS: Yes, Mrs. Marsh, they all are.

So, there you have it. Five days and three stitches to the head later, we went and got them removed. According to Sam, and I quote, "These stitches didn't hurt at all and it took like no time to get them out." He actually told the doctor at the hospital that he wanted four stitches instead of three but he was kind enough to tell him that he only needed three. The nurses at the pediatrician's office were cracking up. They said they all giggled a little bit when they saw the report. As usual, Sam told them all about it when he arrived.

And, not suprisingly, guess what he picked as his prize.....

Oh, the joy of boys.

Civilized Company

Yesterday afternoon, we had the pleasure of hosting Annika and Kianna at our place. Let me tell you something, girls are awesome. They are gentle, peaceful, and really good listeners. I wasn't aware life could be like this since Sam is usually destroying something and yelling about it while doing so. Hopefully, they'll come over again because, boy, did I like it.

Kianna, Sam and Annika...

I wonder what Kianna and Sam were talking about.....Clearly, Annika is not interested :)

Someone Get This Girl An Agent!

Here are some delicious pictures of Isabella...I should quit my day job and become one of those agent-mom women who take their kids everywhere for commercial and photo shoots. Just kidding....kinda sorta.

Sam's back, fish tanks, and angry children

I'm not sure what possessed me to do this but, on Monday, I took the kids into the city to visit the Academy of Sciences Museum. It is a brand new building, slightly less than a year old and boasts a new aquarium, planetarium, and rainforest. It is a pretty awesome place and has wonderful exploratory opportunities for children. Apparently, all of San Francisco knows this because everyone who lives in the city was present, I kid you not, on Monday.

Everywhere you went, there was a line: the bathroom, the elevator, the cafe, the planetarium, the feeding pool, the touching pool, the gift store, the aquarium exibits, the animal exhibits...In short, everything under the roof had a wait time. It was painful. Very, very painful. I knew I should have turned around when I saw the line to the parking garage but I thought to myself, "It can't be that bad." Truthfully, it was worse than bad...it was maddening. Nevertheless, I put on my "Be a Resilient Mom Hat" and took my two children, our large stroller, our diaper bag, our packed lunches, my camera, our sweaters, and my diminishing patience into that building(Note: I should have gone home).

We began our adventure at the aquarium portion of the building. Sam got to enjoy the stingrays and the tide pool. Please be advised that you will not see the front of Sam in most of these pictures...For whatever reason, I kept taking pictures of his back to demonstrate the joy he experienced with each new exhibit we came upon. Intelligent, I know. But he really was very happy to see all these things, I swear it.....

See?????? There's the happy boy....




After a good amount of time checking out the tide pools and touching pools, we ventured deeper into the aquarium. Basically, Sam would run up to a tank, take a quick peak, and then run off to another direction. He did this THE ENTIRE TIME we were in the museum. He was like a humming bird zipping from one thing to another. I found myself yelling a lot to make him stay within some kind of proximity. It was useless. I wanted to leave but guilt (plus the $29.95 entrance fee) kept charging me forward. The only time Sam settled down was when we arrived to the gigantic underwater feeding tank:

This was due to the fact that Sam was fascinated by this man:

We must have been there for twenty minutes or so. After a few minutes, Belle started to get angry. I had forgotten to feed her....probably because I was completely distracted by the fear of having my child abducted. This is what she looked like:


And this was Belle after I fed her...so pretty:



We looked at more fish and then ventured into more areas.


This bone-white crocodile is for "real". The first time we saw it, we thought it was fake but Sam watched it for an eternity and told everyone around him in his loudest possible voice when it moved and what body part had moved. Thrilling, I know.

The Academy has an incredible outdoor "living" space on its roof. It contains all kinds of vegetation that are nestled on the roof top and that provide nutrients to the various animals in the building. It's cool.


Towards the end of our visit, Sam had turned into some crazy type of disobedient child. Below is evidence of him ignoring the sign that said "Do not climb on rocks or hang on glass. Thank you."
Shortly after he ignored the sign, he decided to ignore me and ran off in a direction I couldn't find. He was missing for about thirty seconds. I was all kinds of scared. It was horrible. I finally found him and promptly yanked him by the arm and took ourselves outta there. After ten seconds in the car, he fell asleep.

I won't be visiting the Academy of Sciences for a very long time...at least, not without back up...Jedi-like back up.

The Soldier

For the past few months, Sam has been fighting the forces of evil. He protects his baby sister from the monsters that come in the middle of the night. He does this with his flashlights and with the laser that is nested in his arm. He likens his laser to that of Eva in the movie Wall-E. He loves that movie almost as much as Cars...but I digress. Apparently, fighting the forces of evil is difficult work. This is how we found him at around eleven the other night: