Happy New Year!

Posted by Matthew on Jan 7, 2008 in Blog, Family, Holidays, Home | 5 comments

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Wow…2008! It’s hard to believe another Holiday season has come and gone…and as we dig out of the chaos that was the last month…we find that in addition to the 3 tons of garbage, we are left with many new memories that will last a lifetime. Here are some highlights (and one lowlight ) of the past few weeks:

After the nice visit from Grandma Jeanne, we spent the week leading up to Christmas doing some last minute shopping and LOTS of last minute wrapping. We enjoyed numerous parties with our friends and neighbors and the kids grew more anxious with each passing day. It was so much fun watching them immerse themselves in the spirit of Christmas. Even though the time was a little hectic, and busy…it was a nice calm before the storm.

Ugh…now for the ‘storm’. For those of you who already know the whole story…you can skip this entire section (and feel better in the process!!). For those of you who don’t know how CJ spent his 1st Christmas…well, read on…To set the scene; it’s December 23, and Jen and I are spending the morning recovering from a wonderful Holiday Party the night before. My Dad and Tina had taken Cameron and Ellie, so it was just me, Jen and CJ. Sounds innocent enough, right? I mean we normally have 3 kids to watch and now we only have 1…what could possibly go wrong? We had loafed around all morning, so we decided to get motivated and go get some food in hopes of settling our stomachs. We went upstairs to our room and put CJ on the floor with some toys. As usual, I was ready with time to spare, so I laid on the bed and flicked on the TV. Jen ran downstairs to get something from the dryer when it happened. I knew CJ was crawling around…and I had just seen him not more than 5 seconds earlier…when I heard a ‘bump’ from the bathroom. Now from my vantage point, I can see in the bathroom – so it isn’t like I was not watching him, it’s just that I took my eyes off him for a few seconds.

When I looked to see what made the sound…my heart stopped. All I could see was CJ sitting in our bathroom…..tangled up in a cord……with Jen’s curling iron sitting in his lap.

I nearly fainted but managed to jump up and start running toward him. Just as I was getting close I heard Jen coming in the room. I shouted ‘Is your curling iron on!?!?!?’ and she responded ‘Yes…No…I don’t know…Why!!’ By the time I got to him (which felt like 20 minutes) I knew the answer right away. It was on…and it was at full strength. In the eternity it took for me to get there (3 seconds tops) he had managed to burn himself 2 times. He was literally flailing around trying to get away from it which only made things worse. He managed to flip it out of his lap, only to have it land underneath him and he pressed his leg down on top of it. What made it even worse than that was that Jen and I hadn’t gotten him dressed for the day yet so he was only in a onesie and a diaper. No protection from clothes whatsoever. When I got to him I picked him up and tried to comfort him but he was just screaming so loud. I felt myself losing it when Jen came in. She kept asking if he was burned and I didn’t know how bad it was. I could feel the back of his thigh and it was extremely hot. When I passed him to Jen, I completely broke down. She reached out to take him and that’s when we both saw it. There was a 4″ burn on his inner thigh that had seared down through multiple layers of skin. It was flaming red and there were flaps of skin just peeling back. It was the worst sight I have ever seen in my life. We ended up rushing him to the Urgent Care facility down the street where they treated him for two Severe 2nd Degree burns…one on his inner thigh, and one on his left butt cheek. Since that day we have had to go back to the Doctor over 2x/week. We have to change his dressings once a day, and each time we do we are reminded of what a horrific scene it was. Jen and I have had a hard time dealing with our carelessness as parents…he’s been such a little trooper through the whole thing, and hopefully he’ll be able to make it through without any scars/etc to remind him of what happened.

Ahhhhh…with that sad story out of the way…on with Christmas !!! CJ ended up LOVING his first Christmas, and Cameron and Ellie couldn’t have enjoyed their gifts more. We were up on Christmas morning before the sunrise (my idea), and had pretty much opened every present, and destroyed the living room in the process, by 8:00am. After enjoying the gifts for a while, we headed down to Dad & Tina’s to celebrate at their house before a trip down to Colorado Springs & a visit with Jen’s Mom. As jam-packed as the day sounds…it was made even more crazy due to the fact we were being treated to a true ‘White Christmas’. We awoke to around 3 inches of new snow, and by the time we were on our way to the Springs, it was down-right nasty! Portions of I-25 were closed…there were accidents everywhere…basically, it was one of the worst days to drive – and were doing plenty of it . We had a wonderful visit with Frankie and were given the amazing gift of a new piano for our home (pics coming soon). Frankie was generous enough to trade in her old piano for money towards a lovely refurbished piano. It was delivered last Friday, and Jen and I have already enjoyed having it in the house. Truly, an unbelievable gift.

The rest of the Holiday break included Ice Skating…playing with presents…shopping…Jen and the kiddos 1st Ski Trip…parties, parties and more parties…Casa Bonita…etc. It was an amazing few weeks and we hope all our friends and family were able to enjoy their Holidays as much as we did. We think of you all often, and hope you all have a FANTASTIC 2008!!

Love,
MJCE&CJ