A snake, and a broken nose…

One of my favorite phrases is, “You can’t make this stuff up!”  And we’ve used that phrase a lot in our house when everything falls apart at the same time as it so often does!

My husband met me at Little Miss’ school this week so we could attend an art show open house.  Right before I pulled in my tire pressure light went on—and I didn’t think much of it.  But by the time I got out of the car at her school—we were down to the rim, yep!!  Flat tire!  My husband changed the tire, and over an hour later we finally got back home.

As I pulled into my driveway and walked up to my keypad on my garage, what was waiting for me??  A snake—yes folks, a snake.  And not an ordinary snake, but a sweet little COPPERHEAD!!  Isn’t that a heartwarming thing to come home to??  I froze while watching Justin, oblivious to the snake, walk towards it.  I told the kids to get back in the car and waited for my husband to pull in, who was coming right behind me.  He went up to it to take a closer look (note to readers: don’t actually approach the snake unless you have a good weapon in hand…) and it slithered away under my front bushes!!  Gross.  And after 30 minutes of looking for it, now with the shovel as a weapon in hand (we’re quick learners!), we couldn’t find that thing anywhere.  Little Miss says, “I hope it didn't find a crack in our house to slide into.”  Um, I am at the high end of hysteria at this point.

I wouldn’t let my husband go inside, and kept telling him we should dig up the flower bed completely and rid ourselves of this demon snake—but alas, my rational husband won this debate and went out and bought some “snake-be-gone” product and came home and spread it along the perimeter of the house.

I COULD NOT go to sleep that night thinking about that gross little snake getting the best of us and slithering away into the abyss of my flower beds!!  I would be lying if I said I didn’t sleep with the light on that night.

But it just reminded me of a great story of one of those series of unfortunate events of when my husband broke my nose last year—and as odd as it sounds, it was because of a snake!!

Last year we had a rash of illness that had hit everyone but me, all within two weeks time frame.  My husband had been so sick, that they had to put him on a steroid so he could clear up his lungs.  The kids were all pitifully sick, and I was 9 weeks pregnant and trying to avoid all the sickness from everyone else.  I was feeling so exhausted one night, and had just learned that Little Miss had strep throat.  I look at my husband before I fell asleep and said, “We’re going to make it through, right??  Everyone will be on antibiotics now, and it’s going to get better now, right?”  He reassured me it would, just like he always does and I fell asleep.

I woke up at 2:30am to what felt like a 2 x 4 hitting me in the face.  I am not over dramatizing this one.  I screamed out and as I did, I heard my husband say, “Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  I originally thought Justin had jumped in our bed and kicked me or something, but when the husband started apologizing, I though, “What in the world just happened.”  I was grabbing my face and bawling and then I felt all the blood running down my face and screamed for my husband to get me an ice pack and towel.”  I bawled for about an hour, and I can’t tell you how bad it hurt—and again, I was pregnant and limited on any kind of good pain relief. 

As I’m sobbing on the edge of the bed, my husband keeps saying how sorry he is and that he was having a bad dream.  I knew that was the case—but didn’t care at the moment!!  Then he says, “I think it’s the steroids I’m taking, I’ve had these crazy dreams the last few nights.”  Steroids?  You mean the punch to my face was a steroid-packed-punch??  Not making the situation better…

He kept begging me to let him tell me what the dream was about.  And I kept telling him I didn’t care what it was about because he broke my nose!!  It was awful.  He felt so bad he said he was going to sleep on the floor so he wouldn’t hit me again.  And as I tried to fall asleep an hour later, sitting up with ice packed on my face, I hear my husband’s plea from the darkness, “Can I please tell you about the dream?”  I finally give in, and he tells me he was hiking in the mountains with Justin, and that a giant snake came out of nowhere to get Justin.  He said he looked around in his dream and found a giant rock and knew he had to hit that snake as hard as he could on its head to kill it…

I had at that point stopped crying, but when he explained what he was dreaming about, I knew he really had hit me that hard and my nose was probably broken.  I asked him through my tears, “Why would telling me you were protecting Justin make me feel better??  It just makes me realize how hard you were swinging for me!”  Poor guy, he felt sooooo bad…

Went to the doctor the next day and they couldn’t do surgery because I was pregnant, and I did recover from the blow to my face quite well—and will someday get my slanty nose fixed…but who had time for that with all the fun things I could be making!!

Here’s a pic of me and my husband a couple days after he broke my nose and we were joking about how I needed to get him back…with the sock monkey mittens!!

But seriously, it’s all good and makes for some great story telling and laughs now…I love this guy…

See, it’s like I said,”You really can’t make this stuff up!!”