Warning: Do Not Hug Your Children in the Dark

You would have thought that I had learned my lesson years ago, but I did it
again last night...

After coming home from fencing lessons, the little children were already in
bed but not asleep, so I was making the rounds to hug and kiss them all.
Martin the Warrior enthusiastically jumped to the end of his bed to greet me
and I leaned down to hug him and then it happened...his head met my nose and
I heard a loud crack.

This is a good time to let folks know about a remarkable homeopathic remedy
called Arnica Montana. If you are unfamiliar with homeopathics, they are
natural substances that are diluted into miniscule portions so that they
trigger your body's natural responses. For example, you can take Ipecac to
make someone vomit, but homeopathic Ipecac will trigger your body to do the
opposite...so it will calm your stomach ache or nausea.

Since both Clankeeper and I are of Northern European descent, our children
are all fair skinned for the most part and bruise easily. I have seen my
children fall and get a goose egg and after administering Arnica, they are
left with barely a mark. It is quite miraculous. The other added benefit
is that it is helpful in calming the trauma as well, so you can feel the
calming effect almost instantly. I consider it an essential part of our
first aid kit. And now back to the story....

Anyway, I guess I broke my nose but since the septum is not deviated there
is not much I can do. I took some Arnica, stopped the bleeding, called our
doc, iced it and went to bed. Today it is very sore and tender to the touch
but would you believe I can barely even see a mark!?! I thanked God profusely.

Well, I guess March has been our month for injuries! MerryK wrote here about
our little Emma Darcy's experience with scissors. She has healed nicely,
though she still walks gingerly on her toes, like a ballerina because we
still have a bandage on it. I don't think MerryK wrote about Iceman,
though. (If you don't know my children, you can read our first post here)

Last week Iceman nearly lost his eye when Adaon was "testing a stick to see
how strong it was." The stick broke a part of the stick hit Iceman in the
corner of his eye, thankful millimeters from the eyeball itself. It was
incredibly swollen and purple with blood by the time he got inside. I gave
him Arnica and didn't see any damage to the eyeball, just scratches around
the eye, so I thanked God profusely and didn't worry about it. The next
morning (I was about to leave to take Emma Darcy to have her stitches
removed) I woke up Iceman to check on him and his eye was swollen shut and
looked worse to me. I was worried it might be infected so I took him to the
doc with Emma Darcy. The doc asked him about his vision (I didn't do
that...duh!) and he said he saw a black fog in the corner and sometimes it
looked like someone was standing there, but when he turned his head there
wasn't anyone there! Well, that got us an immediate appointment with an
Ophthalmologist who did a whole array of tests and concluded that Iceman
only had bruising...nothing damaged. And so we thanked God again!

BTW, if you ever have a doctor's office, definitely install lots of fish
tanks. They will keep toddlers busy for hours while they wait for older
brothers to have their eyes checked!