Have I ever told you the story of why I love scooters?
Well, Once upon a time when Nicholas was three months old, Jolie (age 11) and Sydney (age 9) asked me if they could "go down the hill."
That's all they said. "Mommy, can we go down the hill?"
I really thought they were asking if they could walk down the hill in our back yard to the creek. I had 5 kids at this point and one of them was attached to my boobs all day and one of them was 18 months old and getting into everything. Fischer was four years old at the time and honestly, I don't know what he was doing. Probably reading the encyclopedia.
Jolie had come home from school this day very upset. She didn't really have friends at school. Kids made fun of her for reasons I still cannot figure out to this day. It was that ugly, cheeky, drama that girls were doing at this age that blindsided us and we, as a family, could not wrap our minds around understanding why ANYBODY could be that cruel. This involved things like not letting Jolie sit certain places in the lunch room and making fun of her clothes. And the girls who were being mean were kinda rednecks. I hate to say it, but I was always like, "Who the hell do they think they are?" But that's beside the point and this story is getting off track.
Any way, so Jolie comes home upset AGAIN and it turns out she got pushed out of her desk, and when she was on the floor, a group of girls started KICKING her and calling her names! The substitute teacher saw the whole thing and no one even called me.
I used to teach my kids how to handle bullying this way: If someone hits you, hit the floor and act like you passed out. Then, the mean bully will get in a whole shit load of trouble and 911 will be called and we have plenty of lawyers in our family.
But that does not work. Let me tell you. Now I tell my children to fight back. Never start anything, but go for the eyes or the jugular if you need to.
Well, I decided enough is enough. I called the ring leader's mom and dad. I asked them to come over to our house after dinner and we were gonna straighten the whole thing out ourselves, or I was going to take legal action. They were unaware of their daughter's problem, but when asked, the little girl confessed everything and admitted what she and her friends had done. She was very remorseful and was grateful she could come over to say she was sorry.
I called Adrian and told him what went down. I asked him to come home a little early so he would be here when the girl and her parents came.
In the meantime, Jolie and Sydney went "down the hill."
I stayed inside with the little kids.
About fifteen minutes later there is frantic knocking on my front door.
It is a little girl who lives down the street. She is hysterical. I mean, completely hysterical. She is panicked.
In between sobs, she screams, "There is blood pouring out of both of her eyes!"
"Oh, my God! Who's eyes?"
"Your daughter's!"
It turns out, what Jolie and Sydney were asking, was for permission to ride their scooters down the hill on the street.
I think I grabbed, Nicholas, Mollie, and Fischer and shoved them all three into the floor board of my mini van and shot out of my driveway like a bat outta hell down the hill to where Jolie was laying at the bottom.
Luckily, the blood was pouring OVER her eyes, not out of her eyes, but her arm was twisted in a weird way and I could see the bone.
I scooped her up, plopped her in the front seat and I guess Sydney put the kids in car seats while I headed straight for the hospital.
On the way, we passed the family who was coming over.
I rolled down the window to tell them I was heading to the hospital. They could hear Jolie screaming and they saw all the blood. The dad freaked out thinking his daughter's gang had caused this.
Next, we pass Adrian and I tell him to get the in the car, we are going to the hospital.
He took the drivers seat and I held Jolie. All the way, he kept saying, "I can't believe they did this to her!"
At this point, I could not focus. He thought the family had come over and beat the shit out of our daughter. He was furious. He wanted to know where they lived! I kept saying it was the scooter but he didn't understand and thought maybe "Scooter" was like a sixth grade girl's gang name.
We finally made it to the emergency room. Poor Jolie was so bloody and in so much pain. The nurse tried to take a blood sample and wrapped a tourniquet around the arm that didn't have a bone sticking up out of it, and kept slapping it trying to get a vein to pop up. Jolie was wailing! She begged the nurse to stop. As they were cutting off Jolie's clothes, the nurse actually told her to be quiet and be a big girl as she kept trying to straighten out the arm to get the needle in.
My dad finally stepped in and said, "Hey, x ray both arms."
He was right. BOTH arms were totally broken.
Jolie was wheeled off to surgery and she stayed in the hospital for 10 days on IV antibiotics.
She was in two casts for six weeks and one remained on for longer.
She could not feed herself.
She could not bathe herself.
She could not do much of anything.
Adrian and I took shifts at the hospital and I would tie balloons to Nicholas' feet and just sit and talk to Jolie for hours and hours. I read books to her aloud. We watched I Love Lucy DVDs. We ate a lot of chocolate.
Jolie was just at the cusp of entering adolescence and I must say that taking care of her while she was helpless was one of the sweetest experiences I have ever had. My first born was about to start pulling away from me, and here I had one last chance to care for her like a baby.
You know how rumors get started. Well, the whole school heard through the grapevine that Jolie had gotten jumped was in a full body cast. Cards and letters started pouring in. Friends she didn't even know she had, started calling her. She was showered with gifts. It was the sweetest thing.
I don't know exactly what the point of my story is, but Jolie is now a senior in high school. It makes me a little bit sad that she is growing up. She hardly needs me at all unless she needs money. I guess that is why I love scooters and will always cherish that summer.
