THE CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT

We were celebrating Christmas with some good old red neck fun - pulling sleds behind the tractor on the flat field in the front of our house. It has become sort of a holiday tradition at out house if there is snow. We were so excited to have snow that fell on Christmas Eve, so the conditions appeared perfect.

Daniel started out driving the tractor and gave everyone a ride. For the Silveira girls this was a new activity, and they really liked it. Everyone was riding two at a time and taking turns. Jansse and Danielle are old hats at this, and being the youngest, I think that is what spurred the usually unadventurous Silveira girls on to try this activity. It looked something like this:
That's Hailey and Leah on the sled. Having a great time.

Then, for a few "runs" Andy snow boarded behind the tractor - something that amazingly is not an irritant to his hip. Then, Daniel took a break from driving and Andy took over.

I should mention at this time that usually we have Jansse and Danielle where their ski helmets, but with so many kids we didn't have enough helmets, so I did not think much of just letting them go. And, fortunately . . . very fortunately, the helmets would not have prevented the damage in this particular accident, but if the accident had happened just six inches further along the run, the lack of helmet could have been the gravest of mistakes.

So, Andy was pulling the Jansse and Hailey along the fence line. Jansse was facing forward, and for some unknown to me reason, Hailey was facing backwards. As they approached the corner the natural thing happened, and the sled swung out towards the fence. BOOM! The kids went right into the fence. The impact was about six inches from a large wooden fence post. We praise God they did not hit it. But, still we had some damage, and I don't mean to the fence. Hailey was dramatically laying in the snow complaining that her back pained her, and unwilling to move any part of her. And Jansse hit the fence with his face but just six inches more and he would have hit that wooden post and we would be looking at a potentially very serious head injury.

No offense to Hailey, but there was a lot of drama about her injury that turned out to be nothing. That's fine, I'm sure she was frightened and surprised by the turn of events. She was carried into the house, laid on the couch and thoroughly evaluated by a group of know-nothing-about-back-injuries-adults. It was probably fifteen or twenty minutes before our hearts stopped beating super fast. All in all, she is perfectly fine. Not even a bruise or any residual soreness twenty-four hours later.

As for Jansse, he was so brave! Right from the start we cold tell his little sweet face was cut up. Fortunately not in a way that needed stitches or even that bled a lot. And it started to swell up right away too. Here are a couple of photos of how the damage looks twenty-four hours later:

As you can see, swollen lip, several abrasions and a bruised and swollen eye. It makes tears come to my eyes to look at him. He has not complained once about these injuries. In fact, he has just been so concerned about Hailey. However, he's also been much quieter in personality since the accident. An hour or so after the accident he did tell me"This is the worst Christmas ever." In my best wise mother imitation I assured him that it had been a great Christmas before the accident, and it would be a great Christmas after, so we needed to not let the accident cause a bad memory about the whole celebratory day.

The biggest concern I have at this point is I think Jansse is fearful. I think that is what is causing the quieter more shy of the world disposition. To attempt to combat that, I've arranged with Andy that tomorrow, after the Silveiras leave, Andy will pull Jansse and I around on a sled behind the tractor. This will be good for Andy also, as he is just sick with guilt for not being further from the fence when he took the turn - he's the only one blaming him by the way. The rest of us know this was just an accident. I think they both need to "get back on the horse."

So, that is the accident. A very scary event that will have little or no long term impact. But, it will forever be a part of the distinctive memories of this particular Christmas.

I'll let you know how getting back on the horse goes tomorrow.