The weather is nice and cool, it feels like fall.  I love it.  THis is when I like to be outside.  I hate the summer cause I am a complete wimp in the heat; i get headaches, i don't like being sweaty (right now, sweating makes me extra itchy.)  So yesterday, i decided to pick up the kids early and take them to the park!  We were going to go down the slides, play on the swings, and have a great time.  I knew it was going to rain, so i hoped we would be able to get to the park and have some fun before it started.

I was a little disappointed when we got to the park and no one else was there.  No one.  There wasn't even a big dusty tumbleweed blowing across the mulch.  It was a ghost town.  I put Parker in the Baby Bjorn - he loves being in the carrier - and we took off for the big playground.  We went up and down the sides (all three of us!) Stewart hopped across the "floating" platforms and he played on the "weenies."  (He likes to call them weenies.  They look like big green rubbery hotdogs but it is really just sections of chain covered in green rubber.  It's more fun to call them weenies!)  We were climbing up to go down the big "worm slide" when Stewart said he needed to go to the bathroom.  It's a little bit of a pain cause we have to walk over to the rec center but I didn't want him to have an accident.  So we were climbing down.  I went to step down off the platform, i put my right foot in the mulch, and stepped down with my left foot when it rolled over, made a horrifying POP, and i fell.  Luckily i put my hand out to break the fall because I was wearing Parker on my chest.

Through the searing pain, the first thing that shot through my mind was that we were out there ALONE and i left my cell phone in the car (stupid, and I won't do that again.)  I sat there in the much with Stewart standing over me and Parker happily in his carrier and the pain in my foot was getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.  And I screamed a lot and then I started crying.  I cried cause it hurt like a truck and because I was scared that I really hurt myself and we were out there alone and my phone was far away.  And then I looked up and Stewart was looking at me, making this heartbreaking face, and he was crying.  So i sucked it up and stopped crying - but I was still groaning and grunting.  Sweet Stewart tried to help me up by pulling up on the straps of the carrier.  When I finally got to standing, my left leg was bleeding and scratched up and my foot was hurting superbad.  Stewart was lovingly picking the mulch off my shoes, my shirt, my pants.  I sat down on the platform and Stewart said, "You know mom.  I don't have to go to the bathroom anymore."  So while I sat there I tried to get him to play but he just wanted to stand there next to me and make sure I was ok. 

Bill likes to tell Stewart to "rub some dirt on it" or "walk it off" when he has a little owie.  So i thought I should try to walk it off.  And we hobbled up to the rec center.  Without being asked, Stewart wrapped his arm around my waist, and took my arm and put it over his shoulders and he "helped" me walk.  It was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen him do.  We walked back to the playground and I tried to encoourge him to play some more but he said he really just wanted to go home.  We hobbled back to the car and I got Parker in his car seat - who seemed to be completly unphased by the whole event.  I swung my right leg in the car - and then without thinking, i pushed off with my left foot to hop up into the seat and my foot twisted again.  and it maked the horrific popping sound again.  and this time, I screamed really loud.  Stewart started crying again, "Mommy you're scaring me!  I don't know how to drive!"

I don't know how we got so lucky.  I don't know what we did with Stewart to make him so sweet and caring but I know I will never forget him wrapping his arm around my waist to help me walk.  And then his innocent statement, "I don't know how to drive!"  He was doing everything he knew how to do to help me and to help get us home but he just didn't know how to drive.

The rest of the night was interesting.  The worst part was trying to get a sleeping Parker in the house.  I have a hard time carrying the car seat when i have two good feet.  I had a really hard time with it.  And then I had a hard time getting up and down the stairs.  Bill got home at 8:25- just in time to put the kids to bed and help me down to the basement so we could eat dinner and watch the 2-hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy!