On Wednesday (the last day of school/first day of summer) our friend Stephanie invited all the neighborhood kids to her house for a school’s out ice cream party. Olivia was sick, but I thought once she got around the kids and ice cream she might perk up. (You see, it seemed to be a 48 hour bug, and she was closing in on that time).
So I dragged her down to Noah’s house, along with Calvin and Everett. I left Roo home asleep.
We rode our bikes/scooters down to Noah’s house (he lives just half a block down on our same street).
After about fifteen minutes Olivia was begging to go home. I guess she was still not feeling well, for even all the fun of a million neighborhood kids eating ice cream couldn’t cheer her up. That in combo with Roo at home asleep, and I was ready to go too.
So I called for the littles to start heading back.
Everett came when I called, but Calvin was up in the tree and I had to wait for him to climb down.
Next thing I know, Everett has taken off without us, heading home on his own accord.
Which maybe wouldn’t be a problem except Noah lives across the busiest street in our neighborhood.
And so Everett was crossing that road by himself just as Kellie rides by on her bike to pick up her lovelies (Kellie had the sickness at her house too, so only some of her kids were at the party).
Kellie turned to help Everett and make sure he made it across the street safely. As she turned back to continue down the street, the scooter she was carrying for Jaxon got caught in the wheel and she flipped over the bike, landing squarely on her chin.
And this just as I was coming up the road.
But I had glasses on (I’ve had an eye infection this week) so I couldn’t see super well. I couldn’t tell that the person sprawled out in the road was Kellie.
When I finally reached her I walked her home to my house where we cleaned her up as best we could and determined she needed stitches.
Her kids were all at my house by this time (Tisha, another neighbor, grabbed them and brought them over).
So I took her home so she could take herself to the instacare, then kept her kids at my house for the afternoon until she returned.
And when she did come back a little over an hour later, we sat on the bench and chatted the rest of the afternoon away. It seemed the right thing to do after such a crummy week for her!
(Oh yeah, her husband John has been out of town all week, and she got the stomach bug too and spent two days in her bathroom and I even had to bring her kids pizza one night, poor dear!)
Anyhoo, I rarely tell stories about other people on my blog, but I wanted to write this one down because it meant so much to me that she stopped to help Everett, and in doing so she got so hurt herself. I love living in a neighborhood where people know each other, look after one another, and care for all the little lovelies.
And it should also be said that Olivia felt better about fifteen minutes after we got home, and was so happy to have Kirtland and Jaxon over to play with for the rest of the afternoon 😀