Oh, what a morning...

KaiKai and Mojo were late running out the door for school this morning. Not really late, just late enough to need to hurry so that Mo didn't miss her bus. When the door opened back up a few minutes later I just assumed that they had missed it. Even the crying that I heard didn't clue me in, because Mo often cries when she misses the bus. Or when she thinks the tigers might get out of their cages at the zoo and run all those miles and swim that huge river and end up in our yard eating us. Or when she misses Jesus. You know, normal things that people cry about.

Thing is, is that it wasn't Mo that was standing there crying. It was Kai. And she was crying so hard that it was hard to understand her words. And, I know this is hard to picture, but I had that look on my face. The one that shows that not only am I NOT concerned, but I'm slightly annoyed that y'all are SO dramatic about everything, and What, our dog followed you down to the bus stop again? Haven't we been over this? Now stop bawling and get to the bus. That look. The Mother of the Year oh so full of compassion look.

I felt kinda bad when I figured out that she was crying because Mo was in danger. In danger of losing her tongue. In danger of losing her tongue because she LICKED THE STOP SIGN POST. Nice.

Once I translated the scream crying into human words, I ran to get a glass of hot water to try and rescue the child who's already missing teeth from her brother knocking them out and doesn't need to also be missing a tongue. Teeth grow back. Tongues, not so much. While I did that, Kai ran frantically back to the bus stop. It turns out - how cute is this- that she was even MORE freaked out about leaving her defenseless little sis at the bus stop alone, than she was about her tongue situation. I loved that. I really loved that she was FREAKING out trying to choose between standing guard over her and running to get her help. I'm glad that wasn't an easy choice. I'm glad she wouldn't normally think to leave her down on that busy road all alone. Thank you, Kai, good job!

Getting the glass of hot water for Operation Save the Tongue proved to be more challenging than one might expect, because the water pump had frozen again and I didn't know it. Luckily there was a trickle left in the water heater and after a few minutes I got what looked like enough water together for Operation Save the Tongue and I ran the door, barefoot, wearing a robe with no belt, hair everywhere, trying to balance a glass of Save the Tongue water in one had, and a barefoot child under each arm. I peeled out down the driveway and when I got to the bus stop Mo had completed removing herself (minus 2 chunks of tongue flesh) from the sign and was cupping her hand under her chin to catch the blood.

When I got upstairs to tell Chris about it I pointed out that I've never had a child do this. I thought we all just knew better. He said that not only did he do this as a child, but he did it TWICE on the playground in grade school, and his mom was the Duty, so she got to be the one to go fetch the hot water for him. His poor mother.

Then we debriefed the children on the whole adventure, got their stories, laughed at them, acted out our versions of Kai running in place in a panic trying to decide whether to leave Mo or not, slapped some Ambesol on the wound and drove them to school. Chris thawed the water pump, and we're all back in one piece. Except for that nasty tongue wound, but I hear that they heal fast.