My task now is to try to convey the gut-busting excitement we've experienced over the past couple of weeks in a way that will not bore you. Actually, this will be long and boring. Go grab a Pepsi and get comfortable. I'll wait.

Two weeks ago we had quite an exciting day. It was a Saturday just like today (except two weeks previous). I was bringing the kids inside after playing around at the front of the house. The front door was open and Emilie was folding clothes. I should mention that Emilie is scared of bees. And crickets. I'm not sure which one terrifies her more, but she is comically scared of them both. A yellow-jacket wasp flew through the front door and landed on her causing her to jump and scream. She used some clothing that she was holding to fend the wasp off. I grabbed a cup and captured the wasp because I had plans for it.

I took the entrapped wasp and put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes until it appeared to be immobile. I then grabbed the wasp by a wing and fed it to my Venus flytrap (more on that exciting topic later!). At first I thought I froze it too long and had killed it, but a minute or two after the trap closed the wasp came to life and started to freak out. But by then it was too late.

Just as I was stepping away from this delightful activity I heard glass break and then screaming. I ran to the bedroom and found Jaxon precariously poised over a pile of broken glass and Emilie scrambling to clear the area. Jaxon had apparently found a drinking glass somewhere and had broken it against the exercise machine. He was bleeding quite heavily from his hand so I took him to the sink to assess the situation. I could see several small cuts on his hand and one large laceration that appeared to be quite deep and uncomfortably close to his wrist. Unable to determine how bad the cut was, I put pressure on the cut with my thumb and we took Jaxon to urgent care.

Fortunately, the cut wasn't as bad as it initially appeared. Jaxon screamed like a dying rabbit the whole time. Only stickers and bubbles could temporarily sate him him before the terror and pain returned. The doctor cleaned the wound, checked for glass, glued the cut shut and covered it with butterfly bandages and gauze. We were in and out of urgent care in less than an hour (yay for American health care!). As soon as we got home Jaxon crashed and had a pretty good sleep.

Meanwhile, I went down to my dad's shop to do a little bit of work. As I was getting ready to leave my dad called me over and I made my way to the back hallway. As I rounded the corner I saw a giant lizard that had somehow gotten into the store. We briefly discussed how we were going to catch it, but then I realized that it was on tile and couldn't move very well. I just reached down and grabbed it as it slid around ineffectively trying to escape. As we started outside to let it go, it managed to get about halfway into my shirt sleeve. We got to the bushes at the edge of the parking lot and I started to pull it out of my sleeve, but it worked its way all the way into my shirt where it had free reign. My dad had to stick his hand up the back of my shirt and he eventually fished it out at the back of my neck.

Emilie's parents came by that evening to check on Jaxon and they hung out for a while. Jaxon did pretty well with his bandages all night, but by morning the wound apparently started to itch. By the time I went in to get him out of bed he had removed all the gauze, all the butterfly bandages and had partially clawed the cut back open. Of course, his sheets were a bloody mess as a result. We bandaged it back up and he did pretty well keeping the bandages on for the next few days. He still has a decent scab on his hand, but it seems to be healing pretty well.

All that excitement in one day. Yikes.

Remaining blog topics will be added in a separate post. Chances are you haven't read this far anyway...