oh Christmas tree

yesterday we went as a family to get ella a christmas tree.

we picked out a good "apartment-sized" tree.

here it is all decorated!

On our way home with the tree, I saw one of my midwives, who helped birth Ella, in the window of a cafe downtown, so I dropped j. at home and drove back and Ella and I went in and saw her. It was so special for me to ask Elenora where she was born in front of my midwife and to have Ella answer "I was born in the water!" Then I got a coffee and took Ella to the new park, because it was almost 40 degrees outside with no snow on the ground (something we won't see often throughout the winter).

Oh, but what an awful experience! I watched Elenora take a horrible fall onto her head. Terrifying. She was on one of those bridges that kids run across that are kind of wobbly. She's run across it a bunch of times. But on the very last run she tripped and fell sideways (away from me) and fell head-first off of the bridge (which was probably about 4 feet off of the ground). Her head hit first and then her face and neck and then the rest of her body. It was awful. I just held her and she cried and I didn't know if moving her was the right thing to do or not. I was trying to assess her injuries, but afraid of moving her. Her face was all scratched up on one side from the mulch, but otherwise she ended up being okay.

I just could never forgive myself if she had been paralyzed or broke something. As it is, the rest of the day, every time I looked at her bruised and scratched face I just burst into tears. Thankfully it is not worse than it is.

in these 2 photos you can see just a bit of the purple side of her face.

as of today she's actually looking pretty good. just a small bruise on her cheek and a few scratches. otherwise no other injuries. thank God.