Listen! Listen! Listen!

Okay, now don't go thinking I'm a total dork of a mom and this is way too weird, but have I got a story for you!  It goes like this... So, Thursday night I have this really bizarre dream where my daughter keeps telling me NOT to let "Nerm" play outside today because he is going to get hurt and she is scared for his life.  In my dream she keeps yelling at me over and over.  When I finally ask her just how she thinks he's going to get hurt, she tells me that he is going to get hit in the head and he's going to die.  Then I wake up with a start!  It was one of those really REAL kind of dreams.  It was just bugging me all morning, so I opted out of our plans to fly planes at the park and decided to make good on my promise of going to the rec center instead.  (I'd been promising him to go all week but it just hadn't worked out so far).  Off to the pool we go!  We settle in....get Nerm and his friend in the water, Bruce starts in on his iPod (too cool for swimming these days) and I start in on a book I've been wanting to get into all week.  We're not there 25 minutes when I hear a little boy SCREAMING, "Mom my skull is open!  My skull is open!"  I nonchalantly look up from my book and see Nerm standing there with his hand on top of his head and covered head to toe - NO EXAGGERATION - in blood!  I jump up and grab him in my arms and my very first thought is, "I didn't Listen!  I didn't listen!"  I try to calm him down.  I want to pick him up but still recovering from that dumb surgery and can't.  I have to jump up and down waving my hands and walk him down a ways to get the attention of a life guard.  Eighty-seven life guards in the place and not one of them saw him????  And where is first aide?  I'm looking all over for some sign of a red cross.  Poor kid looks like he's been attacked by a shark!  In the meantime another mom hands me a towel and politely tells me she won't be needing it back.  (Thanks anonymous other Mom!)  Why I didn't think to grab his towel or his shirt and put it on his head as soon as I saw him I have no idea!  There goes my "Mom-of-the year" nomination!  But I'm sorry I was a little freaked with flashes of that horrible dream I had the night before and there was so much blood.  You know those head wounds!  I tightly hold the towel to his head.  (For a mom who can't do blood, I'm really not doing too badly at this point.  But I only look at it for a second.  That was enough to realize it was pretty severe.  I don't look at it again until I have to wash his hair when we get home!)  We finally get the attention of a lifeguard who guides us back to the little band-aide room.  Those kids did a great job helping me to calm Nerm down and slow down the bleeding enough so we could get to the Insta-Care, which luckily was just up the street.  Six staples and an hour later he was sucking on a green popsicle and heading home.....to stay INSIDE for movie and popcorn time!  And mom learned a HUGE lesson in being more in tune and listening when the Holy Ghost is trying to tell me something.  I should have been watching more closely!  I should have been more attentive!  Maybe I was somewhat listening and it would have been worse had we gone to the park?  Nerm is wearing those 6 staples proudly though.  He wants to go to the airport just to see if he can set of the metal detectors.  That's our Nerm!

On the up side, we received pictures from Elder "Bud" on Saturday!  You can view them on a slide show on his blog   www.ElderRirie.blogspot.com   He's doing great!