Weekend Happenings

Good Friday morning!

I've added a pic of Roxie after her volleyball scrimmage this week. Volleyball begins in earnest Monday of next week. It's going to be hectic, but very exciting. We've never had a volleyball player before!

Weekend Happenings - I hope your weekend is shaping up nicely. Ours will be fun, I think. Roxie has not one, but two, birthday parties to attend Friday and Saturday, so her weekend will be full of friends and fun.

Friday night, Mike and I will be attending our football jamboree and watching Josh play for the JV team if the weather permits.

The Boy is due home Saturday morning, so Mike and the guys are planning on fishing late Saturday evening. During this time, I will be working on my second college laundry basket. (Don't worry. I'm not going to keep counting them over the years... or maybe I will. It would be interesting to know how many baskets of college laundry I do before Roxie finishes up, wouldn't it? Or maybe that would just interest me. Yeah. I'm thinking I'm the only one who would care a lick about that one.)

Sunday we're have a family dinner after church at my mom's house, and then Austin will be taking the lovely Melia out and about Sunday evening before heading back to JSU Monday morning.

Nothing terribly exciting, but it makes me happy all the same. It's just the kind of weekend I love before the football/volleyball seasons get totally cranked up.

I told you I'd post another story about how well I react in the event of an emergency, so we'll go ahead and get that out of the way. I've got to get ready for the weekend, you know!

I had met my sister, niece and nephews at the ice skating rink at Oak Mountain. While most of the kids were enjoying the ice, my nephew, Zac, was not. He tried, but ice skating was not his thing at the time. He preferred playing at the top of the stadium with a little girl he had met there who was around his age (6 or 7). Beverly and I sat below watching the other kids skate and looked up to see Zac and his little friend standing on the bottom rung of the railing. It was a perfectly normal thing for kids to do, but in this situation it was dangerous because of the height and the cement floor beneath them. Beverly told both of the children to get down, which they immediately did.

Seconds later, we heard the awful thud or pop or thud-pop of a child's head hitting cement. (You've probably heard it before at Wal-Mart. I know I have.) It is a sickening sound. Whirling around, we immediately saw Zac standing looking down. By process of elimination, we knew it was the little girl he had been playing with who had fallen.

We took the steps two at a time and we found her face down on the cement crying. When we lifted her to her feet, blood started pouring from her mouth... pouring, gushing. You get the picture. "Oooh, oooh. That looks bad," I said.

Beverly put her hand under the little girl's chin catching the majority of blood. "Zac, what is her name?" we asked him.

"I don't know. We were just playing together. She got back up on the railing after you told her to get down," he told us... but we had already figured that one out.

We started walking to the entrance of the ice skating rink, Beverly holding her hand under the little girl's chin, Zac walking a few steps behind us, and me trying to think of the best way to help.

That's when my extensive CPR training came into play once again. "MOTHER OF A LITTLE GIRL WEARING A PINK SHIRT AND BLEEDING! MOTHER OF A LITTLE GIRL WEARING A PINK SHIRT AND BLEEDING!" I started yelling at the top of my lungs.

"What are you doing?" my sister asked.

"We have to find her mother so she can take her to the hospital," I replied.

"Am I going to have to go to the hospital?" the little girl asked.

"No, no. You're going to be just fine. It's just a little cut," my sister replied.

"Are you kidding me? She's going to need stitches and from the looks of things, a blood transfusion, too," I said, stating what I thought was the obvious.

Beverly glared at me. Since I wasn't getting a good response from my first announcement, I quickly fell back to my old tried and true way of getting help quickly.

"PARAMEDIC! PARAMEDIC!" I started bellowing.

"Now what are you doing?" Beverly asked. She was getting a little exasperated by now.

"This really works. I've had to do this before in a CPR situation," I told her.

"What's a paramedic?" the little girl asked.

"It's like a doctor," Beverly replied.

"Do I need a doctor?" she asked, sounding a little panicky.

"No. You're going to be fine," Beverly again reassured her.

"She needs an ambulance driver," I mumbled. Again, glaring from Beverly. And again, I used my CPR training until finally her mother appeared.

Surprisingly, her mother was much like Beverly... although unlike Beverly who was just trying to keep the child calm, the mother really didn't think she needed to go to the hospital, or the doctor, or the plastic surgeon, or the dentist, or the blood bank.

I disagreed, so I went up to someone who worked at the rink and pointed out the little bloody girl, and guess what? They called the paramedics... but they used the phone. And I was right. They said she needed a stitch. And guess what else? You bleed more with a head or mouth injury than other places on your body, so she didn't end up needing that blood transfusion after all.

Yep. I was a hero, all right. I think I missed my calling. I definitely should have gone into the medical field doing something. My "bedside manner" is second to none!

Topic of the Week - Passing Down the Formula For a Virtuous Wife

Last excerpt for the week from Vicki Courtney's Your Boy. Enjoy.

"'She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.' (Proverbs 31:20).

"This woman is kind and compassionate. She is attentive to the needs of those less fortunate. She is not so self-absorbed that she turns a blind eye to suffering.

"Key questions for your son: What is her attitude about mission work? Has she been involved in a mission trip or project that helps those who are less fortunate? Or is she focused on her own needs?"

The questions get better and better. If our boys asked themselves these questions before they began dating a young lady (or even soon after they started), I think it would make a huge difference in the type of young lady they brought home for the parents to meet.

Again, this is just a good, solid book for parents to read when raising sons. Be ready for my call this weekend... You better have bought this book by the time I call!

Book

Actually, this is a series of books by one of my favorite authors, Emilie Barnes. The books are written with young girls in mind. (I would start the books in the 3rd grade and use them until your little chick outgrows them.)

I have five of these books, but today I'll just talk about two of them... My Best Friends and Me (Fun Things to Do Together) and A Little Book of Manners (Courtesy and Kindness for Young Ladies).

In My Best Friends and Me, Ms. Barnes writes a book with six chapters that celebrate the friendships of young girls. The book includes activities and crafts to do together as friends, advice for how to be a good friend, advice on how to handle problems in a friendship, etc. The chapters deal with everything from "Why Friendships Are Good to Have" to "Sharing and Caring With Friends" and everything in between. There is even a chapter which lists 50 things you can do with your friends.

The second book for today (A Little Book of Manners) is also excellent. Again, six chapters make up this book and it covers telephone manners, party time manners, mealtime manners, etc. It isn't boring (at all), and could be used in conjunction with your devotion time with your daughter. The chapters are very easy to divide into smaller sections to keep them short, simple and easily memorable for your daughter(s).

All five of these books are beautifully illustrated, also. The cover on each one has a different colored gingham checked border, but you can easily see they are a set.

Next week, I'll give you the names of the other three books in the set, and tell you a little about each one of them. Another "must have" for your parental library.

Have a special weekend. Make sure somewhere on your calendar you've marked in pen a time set aside for family or spouse or friends (or all of them if you can manage). Next week, I'll be back with more of the same. If I'm anything, it is unbearably consistent!

Take care, and I'll talk to you Monday.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda