Monday, June 18, 2007

Realities

On Saturday morning, what had begun as a joke became reality.

Hubby & I had joked that my mom, Grandma, could stay home with all three of the kids while my Dad, PaPa, took hubby and I out rummaging. Since we are all huge collectors, and dealers, this was supposed to be a joke --- but early Saturday morning, PaPa knocked on the door and said the bus was leaving. So we tumbled out of bed and stumbled into his van and headed off.

Derek and I found a few things, including (yet another) crate of 78's. No working player yet, but we're still looking. My dad spent a total of $1.

We returned, had lunch and then the two men started on sawing down trees, trimming dead branches etc. Allie went to a movie with one of her Wisconsin friends, so Grandma and I filled a pool with water and sent the liddle kiddles out to play in it.

Destiny, ever prudish, started with a t-shirt over her two-piece suit. (She finally agreed that a one-piece would be a good idea -- even worth spending her birthday money on! Reality point number two.)

Eventually she got brave enough to take off the shirt she was hiding in. Then she wanted more water in the pool. We warned her that it would be very, very cold, but she (and Hunter) insisted that's what they wanted.

Des stood in it, but that's it. Hunter submerged himself, dipped his head etc and got blue lips for his actions.

After a bit I got out the cellphone camera and snapped some pics. Do you have any idea how hard it is to take photos of a 7 year old boy?! Very.



Sure, he'll ham and pose -- but stand still and smile nicely? No way!



Eventually I had to order him to stand nice. (Poor Des then got his cold body pressed against her -- Brr!)


During their play, I noticed unusual bruising on Hunter's side. Because of the abuse, I was terrified. "It has begun," I thought with tears in my eyes and fear in my throat. It turns out the what I thought was bruising from fingers (finger tips and long pulling marks), wasn't. Hunter was bruised with a bike wheel and the strange "finger marks" matched up with his ribs. But for quite some time I was convinced of the worst. I couldn't just take Hunter's word at first because he's lied &/or refused to talk about his dad's actions before. This is the sort of thing that you live with in families with such a history. You can be carrying along as usual, but then you are stopped cold with the what-ifs and fears. Reality point number three.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the bruise thing is really something that can freak someone out. Once there has been a history like that, then it's hard to know if you are being paranoid or protective. It stinks that people even have to worry about that kind of yucky stuff!