Slippery stairs

Sena, sporting her new Raiders warm up jacket she got last night (Ri in her jammies)

Rilynn, 8 months old, a few days after falling down the stairs
Our beautiful and dangerous staircase

On Monday night Sena had to go out to the soccer field for soccer pictures. She was supposed to have practice after but she had a band concert she was in. On her way out the door for pictures she slipped and fell all the way down our full flight of oak stairs and landed in the ceramic tile entry way. Thud, thud, thud is all I heard as she bounced on her butt down. I left the water running in the bathroom and ran. Chad had gotten to her first at the bottom of the stairs. Thank goodness after a few min she got up and could walk. That brought all the memories quickly back to me of when little Ri was 8 months old and fell down those darn stairs....

It was one of the kids first days of summer break and we were all getting ready for soccer camp that morning. The two days prior to that day Kristian kept forgetting to shut the gate at the top of the stairs and I was all over him. I remember saying to him, "if the baby falls down those stairs, she will die!" Rilynn was not crawling at the time but she was doing the "butt scoot" rather quickly along the floor. That morning I had just pored myself a bowl of cereal and was going to stand and eat it quickly before leaving, and I heard that thud, thud, thud. I ran to see my beautiful baby girl hitting her head all the way down the stairs. I just remember screaming "Oh, God, no!". Kristian (who had just left the gate open) was at the bottom of the stairs with I am sure the same horrified look on his face that I had on mine. What happened after that is a little blurry for me. Kristian ran to get a neighbor who is a nurse and I called 911. Rilynn laid on the floor screaming like I had never heard before. I didn't dare pick her up in case her neck was broke or something. She had a huge bump on one side of her head that quickly turned purple. I remember calling Chads work and telling the secretary to tell Chad to go to the hospital right away. The ambulance came and told me to get her infant car seat and they put her in there and made a neck support for her. I rode in the ambulance to the hospital with her. We were at the hospital for quite a while so that they could observe her to see if they needed cat scans or x-rays. NOTHING, she was fine! To this day that was the worst day of my life. When the doctors questioned me about how this happened, I felt like the worst parent in the whole world. When it was all over with I cried and cried. For many days and weeks after I could not close my eyes with out seeing it happening. My neighbor who came that morning and helped with the other kids later brought me a Willow Tree figurine called "Angel of Miracles". It was truly a miracle that she survived with only a bump on her head. It took Kristian some recovery time also, still to this day I think it eats at him. Poor kid, I can only imagine that when I went off in the ambulance with Ri that morning, he must of stood there thinking "I just killed my sister". Thank you God for miracles.

Senas soccer team won for the first time last night with no help from Sena who sat on the sidelines too sore to play. I think I will be taking her to the chiropractors this week also. Life is never dull, thats for sure!