It Wasn't Funny

At the time.

But a few days out, and I can't help but laugh.

The other day we had a pinch of drama. Or should I say a BITE of drama?

To set the stage. Chase and Ellis are at the kitchen table-- drawing. Mark is in the living room watching TV. I am at the stove baking something, back turned to the girls.

Everything is quiet. And then it isn't. Both Ellis and Chase start WAILING and SCREAMING. I turn around and say 'What is wrong???" Ellis sobs out "She bit me." But Chase is wailing too. What is going on? I rush over to see what the damage to Ellis is, and trip over the running shoes that Mark left in the middle of the floor. Now I am laying on the floor and wailing too [and trying VERY HARD NOT TO SWEAR AT MY HUSBAND who is now standing over all of this. I might have thrown his shoe at him. Maybe.]

He made sure that Ellis had all her fingers intact, that I hadn't smashed my skull open, and then retreated to the relative safety of the couch [He probably figured that I couldn't throw the other shoe AROUND a corner. Maybe.]

Ellis stopped sobbing and went back to coloring. But Chase kept crying--I thought it was remorse. Well, NOT EXACTLY. Between the sobs of "It was an accident." [Huh? how do you accidentally bite someone?] "She stuck her finger in my face. And it was an accident" [Still not getting it, but OK. Let's stop crying and apologize and get on with the day.] "But she hurt me. My tooth hurts and is falling out!"

To recap, when Ellis poked Chase in the face, Chase had a moment of primal rage and bit her sister. She obviously wasn't thinking things through [Although I thought I heard her say, through the sobs, "But I used my back teeth"] , and didn't think about the fact that her front tooth is wiggly. It dislodged the tooth a bit more--and hurt.

Now I am walking around with stiff neck and a bruised hip [but otherwise unscathed.] Chase has a very wiggly tooth, that will probably come out sometime this week. Ellis is none the worse for wear. And Mark thinks that I throw like a girl.

I am just really thankful that we didn't have a trip to the emergency room. This one would have been a hard one to explain...