I will start with a warning to all the men who may read this: Do not ever wake up the mother of your children with the following phrase. "Don't worry she's okay, but I have to tell you something..." This is how that fateful 24 hour period began.

It is 1996 and I work second shift, which is from 3:45p.m. until 12:15 a.m. My six-month-old daughter wakes at 6:00 a.m. on the dot every day so I am currently getting about five hours sleep a night. So here I am being woken from my pathetic amount of sleep being told not to worry but something is wrong with my daughter. I had no trouble waking up that morning. I was out of bed with a pulse rate of about 3,000 beats per minute. I went to my baby and there she was in her crib, smiling at me with the most hideous burn on her face. It was about the size of a golf ball and looked awful. Naturally I freaked. My poor husband could not have felt any worse trying to recount how he was responsible for disfiguring our beautiful little girl. It truly was an accident. He had taken a mini deep-dish pizza from the toaster oven and was heading to the living room to eat. On the way he stopped to retrieve a toy that Kelli had dropped. When he bent over to pick the toy up, the pizza slid off the plate and directly onto Kelli's face, hot and bubbly cheese side down. All I could ask was why didn't he call me at work? After all was said and told I was thankful that he handled it the way he did. I did not want to hurt his feelings, I decided that her pediatrician needed to have a look at it to be sure she was o.k. So off we troop to the doctor's office, just me, my daughter Kelli, and my son Kiel. Since we didn't make an appointment, we had to wait a while. Naturally they questioned me as to how she received the burn and I was honest, it was an accident after all. They told me how to care for Kelli's burn and put a huge sterile bandage on her tiny, little face. She looked awful but she was happy again. When we got home I decided to take my kids to the playground across the street. Kiel had been cooped up all morning and he is not one to stand for that sort of thing for very long. He is a runner and needs wide-open spaces to do just that. So off we troop to the playground, just me, my bandage-faced daughter Kelli, and my son, Kiel. I swear to you we were not there for more than five minutes when it happened. Kiel jumped off one of the play structures and let out an ear-piercing scream. His ankle and foot were already swelling and he was shrieking. I got him calm and placed Kelli back in her stroller. I had no other way to get him home, so I put Kiel on my deeply sunburned back and walked home. All the way home I was thinking that I could not show up at the pediatrician's office with him. With Kelli's face bandaged and now Kiel's foot apparently broken, they would take my kids away for sure. So I got my girl friend to watch Kelli while I brought Kiel to the walk in center in our town. They took x-rays of his foot but could not tell if it was broken and wanted me to go to my regular pediatrician in the morning for new x-rays and a second opinion. So off we troop, back to the pediatrician. Just me, my bandaged-faced daughter Kelli, and my ankle-wrapped son, Kiel. This time we had an appointment so we got right in, although I'm sure that my children's state of appearance helped. While we waited briefly in the lobby, Kiel was up to his usual antics and tripped on a chair leg. Now he is developing quite a shiner. If people were staring before, they were down right gawking now. Our pediatrician took more x-rays and it was decided that no, Kiel's ankle and foot were not broken, but we needed to keep him off his feet for a couple days. I thought to myself, do they actually know this child? I'd be lucky to keep him off his feet for a couple minutes. Then the doctor said that as long as I was there why didn't they check Kelli's face? That is when the final straw was placed on my back... So there we were, Kiel back in the stroller, Kelli back on the exam table, and it happened. Kiel stood up in the stroller, it went out from under him and he cracked his head on the cement floor. I started jumping up and down like a raving lunatic while screaming and pointing at my son: "Did you see that? You saw that right! I told you he does these things!!!" We left shortly after that. They had a new understanding of my son, and I had a freshly bandaged set of kids. It pretty much goes without say that I laid low for a couple weeks after that. As I sit here, eight years later in the Emergency Room, I am happy to report that my son saw the worst of his injuries that day. He has since sustained only the usual assortment of minor cuts and bruises. While my daughter (I am happy to report), sustained no permanent injury from her burn, she has had other stitches and body parts stuck where they have no business being, but that is another story altogether.