So Cricket just came to me to tell me she’s missing Graying (the bunny) and kiss me goodnight. I do the usual loving on her, and then ask if she got enough to eat today (remember, this is my stick child who was in the hospital for so long this fall), and if she took her vitamins (lest she get so sick again), and how her head is feeling… and she says to me….

“It only hurts when I hit it.”

As if the bunny funeral held last night in a very cold pouring rain, after dark weren’t enough, Cricket managed to trip over Sunshine’s foot and propel herself forehead first into the edge of a door. You can imagine (and sympathetically wince) at the resounding crack that was heard, and feel the muscles tighten along your neck in the all too brief silence that follows in preparation for the ear splitting screech of pain which inevitably results from such an impact. No parent can move quickly enough at such a time, much less overweight out-of-shape parents, but we do our best. Cricket had a lovely dark blue crease running vertically along one side of her forehead and a goose egg was quickly making that crease ever deeper. She spent the night in our bed, wedged between us with an icepack draped artistically if not strategically across her forehead. The morning brought a definite reduction in swelling, but she remained in bed most of the day with a little nausea and dizziness which has since resolved. Life is never dull around these parts…