When Lee was a child Granny had to take him to the ER so many times, I’m surprised they haven’t yet named a wing after him. He’s broken bones, had concussions, gotten hit by a car, been in a car accident, and gotten stitches so many times he’s practically the bionic man now.

This hanging out the ER syndrome is something Lee passed on to his boys. Especially Caleb. Caleb’s had stitches in his head three times. And on his face twice. He’s also broken his arm. And he’s only 8. He hasn’t even really started playing sports yet. I shiver just thinking about what lies ahead for us.

Last Tuesday Spencer had a friend over to play video games. I have really thought about giving our xbox away to charity because the boys fight over it so much. “Mom Spencer won’t let me play Red Dead Redemption.” “Caleb you’re supposed to go to the left.” “Why did you just kill me.” It’s enough to make my head explode right off my body.

Caleb swears he wasn’t mad [but I don't really believe that...I think they were AGAIN fighting over the video game] when he threw a pair of Spencer’s shorts. He says he was just trying to throw them in to the laundry room [which really is just a throw away from their bedroom]. But the shorts hit Spencer friend.

The friend reacted by throwing the shorts back at Caleb who had turned around and was walking away. The shorts [along with the belt attached] hit Caleb in the back of the head, cutting it open. I was upstairs straightening my hair for my upcoming meeting and I heard them yelling at each other but tried to drown them out. I could hear the friend telling Caleb, “Go tell your mom.” I figured he was just making fun of him for being a tattle tale or something.

But when Caleb reached the bathroom and told me his head hurt, I sighed and told him we’d get him some ice. That’s when I noticed the blood dripping down his neck. I yelled, “OH MY GOD! WHAT HAPPENED?” and then remembered I needed to stay calm or else I’d freak him out.

Caleb was whimpering “Do I have to get stitches? I don’t want to get stitches.” I started to clean up the cut. At first it didn’t look too bad. I said, “No I don’t think it’s bad enough for stitches.”

But after I got all the blood cleaned up I realized he had a pretty deep gash in his head. And YES it likely did require stitches.

It was after-hours for the doctor’s office so we headed over to the closest walk-in clinic. The place was empty so we got right in. The nurse took a look at it. Cleaned it up some more. And then told us the doctor would be in to either put in stitches or staples.

Caleb’s eyes got really, really big. STAPLES! He was horrified.

When the doctor came in Caleb meekly asked, “Are you stapling my head?”

The doctor assured him he was just going to use stitches. But as he was answering the question he turned sideways and Caleb could see the big needle with Novocaine in it. He gasped. The doctor turned to try to hide the needle. But the damage was already done.

We assured Caleb that it would just pinch for a minute and then it would be all numb. All he’d feel after that would be maybe a little tugging. The doctor put in the needle and Skyler & I held Caleb’s hand. That kid sure has a tight grip.

A few minutes later the doctor poked Caleb in the head a few dozen times with the needle. Caleb didn’t even flinch. So the Novocaine was working.

Caleb ended up with three stitches in the back of his head. He was so proud of himself. He doesn’t remember any of the other times he’s had stitches. So he went home and bragged about how brave he was. Now he has a war story to share with all his friends.

Today we went back to the walk-in clinic to get the stitches out. The place was packed today. And it smelled like sickness. You know me and my OCD. I was freaking out. I had to go outside for a little bit to get some fresh air. After about 30 minutes in the waiting room they finally called Caleb’s name. With relief I signed “THANK GOD.”

Caleb’s hair is dark. And the stitches are dark. So the nurse tried to cut them out without also giving Caleb a haircut. She struggled a little bit with the first one. But eventually got it out without Caleb even realizing it. She went to through it away, but Caleb was trying to see it. So she set it next to him. I’m pretty sure he would have taken those stitches home for show-and-tell if she would have let him.

The next two stitch removals were a little bit painful. I could see him tense up a little so I grabbed his hand. He told the nurse, “That one hurt a little bit.”

But the last one came out easy too. So he’s all stitched up. And all better. He’s such a brave kid.

I hope this is the last emergency visit. But somehow I doubt that.

A few years ago Spencer joined Soccer Club. In Soccer Club (as opposed to regular recreational soccer) he gets to play other school and club teams and gets to travel around the Midwest to soccer tournaments. This weekend his new U11 team had a tournament in Muscatine.

Muscatine is a pretty small town. According to the 2000 census they have less than 23,000 people in town. And this weekend they were hosting both the soccer tournament AND a softball tournament. For a city that has about 10 hotels total, hosting TWO big sporting events should be a big no-no.

But nobody listens to me. What’s new?

Muscatine isn’t that far from us so we weren’t going to get a hotel room. Just like the last Muscatine tournament, we were just going to drive up each day for the games and then drive home at night.

But then we found out Spencer’s team played at 8am on both Saturday and Sunday. If you’ve known me longer than 45 seconds then you know I don’t do 8am. I don’t even go to work that early. I am as far from a morning person as you can get.

So I made a reservation at a local hotel. All was good. We had two queen beds. And there was a pool. We were set.

But a few days later (about a week before our trip), I got a note from Expedia. “Call me. There’s a problem,” was the jist of the email.

Turns out the hotel was overbooked and didn’t have room for us. The dude from Expedia apologized profusely and said he’d make it right. He was going to find me a better hotel and only charge me the same price and give me a $100 certificate for a future trip booked through Expedia. I was totally down with that.

Only he couldn’t find any other hotels. The whole city was booked. Imagine that. A small city. Who is hosting both a soccer tournament and softball tournament. With only 10 hotels. Is booked. This is me giving you the evil eye, city of Muscatine. Consider yourself on notice.

The only room Expedia could find for me was at the Super 8. I was a little leary ’cause Super 8 sounded like a not so nice hotel. But maybe that’s because I’m a huge snob. Who knows.

So the Expedia dude got me booked at the Super 8. He said, “Is that going to be ok?”

I replied, “Yeah, as long as it doesn’t have bugs.”

“Oh stop. Of course it doesn’t have bugs,” he joked in his adorable English accent.

So Friday night, Spencer, Caleb and I checked in to our room at the Super 8. [Skyler had a birthday party to go to and Lee had a softball game so they joined us later that night.]

First, our room was on the second floor. And the hotel had no elevator. WTF?!? What hotel with more than one floor doesn’t have an elevator. Do they think people who come to Muscatine don’t have luggage?

Even though we were only staying two nights, with five people we had a pretty big bag. And with Lee still back at home, I had to do my best Popeye impersonation and lug the bag up one flight of stairs. Turn on the landing and lug it up the second flight of stairs.

Then, the second I opened the door to our room I was smacked across the face with the smell of mildew. I could hear my allergies groan and my asthma kicking up it’s heels.

But what could I do? There were no other hotels available. I did seriously consider sleeping in the van, but I figured the kids would protest. Then I thought about just driving home and waking up at 5am for the morning game. But then my inner night owl beat the crap out of my tiny inner morning person and I relented.

The next morning I woke up with my face swollen two sizes too big and my nose running like somebody forgot to turn off the cold faucet.

And to make matters better, Lee informed me that he got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and saw several bugs in there.

Kill me. Kill me now.

Luckily we were busy all day. In fact I had to drive all the way back home for several hours for Skyler’s cheer competition and then all the way back to Muscatine for Spencer’s next soccer game. [This is my life. Constantly in the car. When I'm not in shitty motels.] So I didn’t have to hang out in the hotel much.

When I got back Lee informed me that he cleaned out the dehumidifier in the room. [What hotel has a separate stand-alone dehumidifier in the room? Crappy ones.] He also pulled the filter out of the air conditioner. It was apparently covered in dirty and grime and things we can’t speak of. He took them outside, smacked them on the back wall of the hotel and replaced them.

For the love of God, Super 8. Clean your damn filters more than once in a lifetime.

Then as we were getting ready for bed, Caleb went in to the bathroom. He came out and said, “Why are there bugs in the bathroom?”

Why indeed Caleb? If an 8-year-old realizes a hotel shouldn’t have bugs, why doesn’t a hotel realize it shouldn’t have bugs. I’m just sayin’.

So, needless to say, we will NEVER stay in the Super 8 in Muscatine EVER AGAIN. I’d rather sleep in my car. Or wake up at 5am. Or skip the tournament all together. Anything is better than bugs and swollen faces.

My truck is currently out of commission due to a little run-in with the garage wall. So I borrowed a truck from a friend until we can get ours fixed. With full-time jobs and four kids needing to be driven all over town, we can’t survive with just one car. It’s so nice to have such friends that are willing to help us out like this.

Of course, that might change now.

I’ve been driving around this borrowed truck and parking it in front of my house (since my truck is in pieces in the garage). We haven’t had much success with parking in front of our house. At least four or five times somebody has hit one of our cars that is parked in front of our house.

One time a car from a block up rolled down the street, missed every. single. thing. in it’s path…except my car. We weren’t home and had left the kids at home with a sitter. The sitter discovered our car was involved when the cops knocked on our door to let us know.

One winter a guy slid as he turned the corner and side swiped our car. Even though we are THREE houses down from the corner. He was in a work truck and, although he didn’t knock on our door (presumably because it happened at the butt crack of dawn), he did leave us his insurance information under our windshield wiper.

Another time a young girl was driving up our street, was a little too far to the right, and ended up taking the side mirror off the Geo Metro we had waiting for Justis to get a license. I was walking out the door to take one of the kids somewhere when it happened. And she didn’t even stop. Just hit the car right in front of me and kept going. Justis ran after her and saw which house she stopped at a block away. So we were able to get her insurance information…eventually.

And we’ve also been hit one or two times where nobody stopped to give us their name or number. Luckily those times the damage was minimal.

We thought we were pretty safe since it’s summer. Most of the previous accidents happened on very icy days in the dead of winter. But around 3:30pm. Just a mere 10 minutes after I had returned home from picking up Skyler & Spencer from school. And a mere half hour before I had to pick up Keaton and Caleb from school. [Don't even get me started on these staggered school times.] There was a knock on the door.

There was a little old lady on the other side of the door. “I accidentally hit your car,” she practically whispered.

My first thought was, “Oh here we go again.”

Then my second thought was, “SHIT! The only car parked in front of the house IS BORROWED FROM A FRIEND.”

I tried not to panic as I walked out to the borrowed truck with this woman. She had no damage to her car…that I could see. Then I turned around and looked at the borrowed truck. The side mirror was still attached, but the glass was cracked in a spider web pattern. The edge of the running board was knocked clear off and laying in the middle of the street. And there was a white streak streaming across the dark blue truck from the trunk to the hood.

I took a deep breath. Screamed “FUCKING MOTHER FUCKER!” In my head. And then calmly asked her for her information.

She was very nice. And very apologetic. I told her, “Thanks for stopping and letting me know rather than just driving off.”

She replied, “Oh I would never do that. I’m not that kind of person.”

“You’d be surprised how many people out there are that kind of person,” I mumbled.

Thankfully my friend is handling it very well. He’s very handy with tools and, as a contractor, knows a lot of people. So he can get it fixed cheaply (I hope). And the little old lady has insurance so that’s covered. But I felt awful having to make that phone call. “You know how you let me borrow your truck? Well some little old lady just hit it in front of our house.”

This month sucks. I’m going to go cuddle with bottle of vodka.

This has been a whirlwind month for the kids.

We started the month with 4th of July activities. Skyler’s cheer team performed in the parade. We had our annual family picnic with my dad’s side of the family. The three younger kids ran in the annual Kids Fun Run. We watched the fireworks (the first ones back downtown since the horrible flood of 2008). And we had several family meals.

Then the kids headed to Chicago with my mom. For two weeks. They went to Navy Pier, saw tons of movies and went swimming almost every day.

We got to see them for a day and a half before they all headed off to church camp. Keaton went to West Virginia for a mission trip. And Skyler, Spencer, and Caleb headed to a nearby camp for some fun outdoor activities.

This weekend we picked them up from camp and immediately headed to Des Moines for a soccer tournament. And by immediately I mean after a stop at home for showers.

I completely underestimated how dirty the outdoors is. I know, right? Who knew spending a week in the forest with bugs and mud and creek water could be so disgusting?

Skyler was in a Music, Art, Drama camp so we headed up to camp early to catch her performance. They wrote their own musical to perform for parents. It was very cute. They did a fantastic job.

The second I saw her I was a little taken aback by how filthy and tangled her hair was. I turned to Lee and said, “Ok we are going to HAVE to make time to stop at home for showers.”

This might come as a shock to you, but I’m not really an outdoorsy person. You’re shocked, right? We were at camp for an hour; watching Skyler’s performance and picking up the kids. I spent the entire hour trying not to have a panic attack. The second I stepped in to the lodge my OCD kicked in and I wanted to scream “NOBODY TOUCH ME UNTIL YOU WASH YOUR HANDS!” But I took a deep breath (which was difficult since the lodge smelled like animal urine), plastered on a fake smile, and tried to make the best of it.

Kids love that kind of thing. Dirt, mud, creek stomping. They were in their element. Me? I was all, “Grab your stuff. Let’s get the hell out of here.” A couple weeks ago Keaton said we should buy an RV and go camping in the summers. My response? Do I look like a girl who camps? When Keaton was in Boy Scouts Lee went on every camping trip or Keaton didn’t go. I would have passed out the first time I accidentally stepped in a mud puddle. Or starved because you know my OCD won’t allow me to eat from some rusty skillet held over a fire made with dirty sticks rather than a stove.

Stopping home would likely make us late for the soccer tournament, but I didn’t care. Showers were necessary if I was going to sit in the car with the kids for a couple of hours. And I’m sure Spencer’s teammates would appreciate the sacrifice of a shower.

As soon as we got home they all jumped in the shower. And I went through their bags. I dumped the bags directly in the laundry room. Towels and bathing suits were covered in smelly water, small tree branches and dried up leaves. I did everything I could to stop dry heaving as I stuffed the washing machine full of camp clothes. Several pairs of socks that used to be white were now black. I just threw those away. For my sanity I would rather spend $10 on a package of new socks then continue to touch those stinky, mud-filled socks. I’m seriously thinking about throwing away a couple pairs of shoes too. YUCK!

I’m thinking next year Lee can pick the kids up from camp and wash all their clothes. I’ll spend the weekend at the spa.